Before I start this entry, I wanted to let everyone know that my server back at home (you know, the one that runs RoadRunner X and all of the hosting that I do) decided to take a dump on the first day I was gone. I had someone take a look, and the BIOS is reporting a "PCI Parity Error," so likely one of the PCI cards has died. Hopefully I can convince Torke to go over and fix it later today (that is, Tuesday.) So, I'm sorry for the mess caused for everyone, but I'm doing my best to fix it from literally half a world away.

My flight to Munich consisted of a flight to Toronto (four hours,) then to Munich (eight hours.) I was flying first class, and having never had that privilege before, it was going to be an interesting experience. So, after making sure everything was in order at home (including the server, hah!) I took a cab to the airport.

The cab driver was this crazy (I use that term affectionately, I promise) Russian guy who decided that it was his job to educate me about his life story on the way to the airport. It wasn't bad, actually, since I appreciated the distraction from my constant thoughts of, "what have I forgotten?" Apparently he and his brother bought a hotel in the outskirts of Edmonton for a couple hundred grand, and ran it successfully for a few years. Then, his brother got greedy and bought another hotel in the north, which brought both hotels crashing to a disappointing financial end. He says that he lost a couple hundred grand on the whole deal, and it makes me thankful that I'm not in such hot water. It sounds like a boring story, but trust me, recited in his thick Russian accent it was a winner.

It was -34 degrees at the Edmonton International Airport, with a wind chill warning threatening temperatures that felt like -40 to -50 or worse. It felt good to step into the airport, knowing that I likely wouldn't be feeling those temperatures again until next winter. I then stopped and stared in awe at the huge Air Canada lineup, thinking, "Great, it's going to take an hour or more to clear this mess."

Then I remembered that I was flying first class, and went to the special "Executive Class Only" lineup.

And it was at that point that I felt like a Geniune Asshole. Sure, technically the company had paid for this privilege, but that didn't change the fact that all the plebs next to me who had waited an hour or two to check in were scowling at my ability to skip the queue. The guy in front of me was arguing with the check-in lady about something, I guess the weather in Toronto was terrible, and they were canceling flights all over the place. So, the guy in front of me probably paid $1,000 or more for his first class ticket, but was being downgraded to economy class on a later flight. He was not impressed.

After checking in (which included the placement of bright red 'PRIORITY' stickers on my luggage), I went through security. They closely scrutinized my commemorative Bombardier SkyTrain MkII keychain, since it shows up as a huge metal object in the scanner. The lady looked at it curiously, then tossed it back into the plastic bin, having quickly lost interest. I'm sure the actual *keys* on my keychain are more capable of injuring someone than the little model SkyTrain.

I then went to the Maple Leaf Lounge, which is a special room reserved only for first class passengers. And let me tell you, this room was positively swanky. Comfortable chairs, free wireless Internet, televisions, full business workstations (including computers,) self-serve food, free liquor, the whole works. But the nicest part was the lack of noise. It was nice and quiet, and you don't really appreciate how the lack of crying children or relatives yelling at each other really makes a difference. Was it worth the extra couple grand? I don't know about that, but it was damn nice.

I was promised one of the 'new cabins' when I booked the flight, which includes seats on the plane that fold *all* the way back, so that you can actually sleep while you fly. Everyone at work was pretty excited to receive a report back about how they were. So you can imagine my disappointment when I got on the plane and there were no fancy new seats.

I took my jacket off, and looked over, to find a smiling stewardess with a coat hanger. I blinked, confused about what was going on. She asked, "May I take your jacket, Mr. Sommerfeld?" I blinked again, and said awkwardly, "Uh.. sure.." It was pretty clear that I just wasn't used to this first class stuff.

Unfortunately, the whole first class experience was ruined by the guy in the seat in front of me who thought it was acceptable to stink up the first class cabin by farting the *whole duration* of the trip. When I say this guy stank, I mean he *stank.* I felt like going back to where all the plebs were sitting and yelling, "Who wants to trade for my first class seat?" But, I didn't want to cause a riot on the plane :) First class doesn't exactly mean classy passengers, I guess.

The plane landed in Toronto, and I made a mad dash for my connecting flight to Munich (which was boarding only 20 minutes after my Edmonton flight landed.) Since I was moving in the secured area between the domestic and international terminals, I had to go through a series of checkpoints involving my passport and boarding pass. I made it to the gate for my Munich flight just in time to hear the boarding announcements in English, French, and German. Why it surprised me to hear German, I don't know, but it makes perfect sense.

Before long, I was on the plane, sitting in a seat with enough leg room to fit a small family into. It wasn't one of the fancy 'new' seats, but it was comfortable. The food was pretty tasty, even for airplane food. Before long, I settled in to play some Orcs & Elves on my brand new black DS Lite, interspersed with episodes of The West Wing. I tried to get some sleep, but, I've never been one to sleep while traveling. Unfortunately, I still had a long day ahead of me, so I got a brief hour or two worth of rest.

In a surprise turn of events, I was asked this week if I'd like to work out of Germany for a couple of months. Of course, I didn't hesitate, and said "yes!" right away. So here I am, a few days later, telling you all about my plans to fly off to Deutschland a week from today. As it turns out, there's a big project happening near Nuremberg, and they need some more of us computer forensics folks to come on board and lend a helping hand.

I've never been outside of Canada or the United States in my entire life, so this should be an interesting experience to say the least. I don't know a lick of German, and despite reassurances ("*everyone* speaks English in Germany!",) I suspect that getting around is probably going to be a lot more difficult than people think. They would not have called it 'Germany' if everyone spoke English, now would they? I've been trying to review some German words, and they're absolutely ridiculous. Take the English word 'certificate' for example. In German, it's 'grenzuebertrittsbescheinigung.' I rest my case.

While in Germany, I'll have the odd weekend or two to visit various places and events around Europe. Considering that I'm a pretty big fan of history in general, Europe is a gold mine of historically significant places. Heck, even Nuremberg itself is chocked full of history. I've already put together a list of what I'd like to see:

• Rome, Italy. Specifically, the Coliseum, and any other ancient Roman sites. Also, a trip to Vatican City if only to say I've set foot on the smallest country in the world. A sampling of authentic Italian cuisine will be in order, as well.
• Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland. This destination is self-explanatory, but I would like to be able to pay my respects.
• Vimy Ridge, France. The Canadian flag still flies at this important World War I memorial. Before this historic event, Canada was looked upon as a mere colony to the United Kingdom. After the impressive performance of Canadian troops taking Vimy Ridge, a general remarked, "In those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation."
• Juno Beach, France. This location is where Canadian troops did their part during the Normandy invasion. They suffered losses of over 50% while bringing down the second most heavily fortified stretch of land along Normandy. As with Vimy Ridge, the Canadian flag still flies here.
• Bingen am Rhein, Germany. In March, this town will become the location of the largest 100% pure demoscene event in the world. The event will include Commodore 64 competitions, modern demoscene music compositions, and more traditional module demoscene music compositions. There will be demoscene music played the whole time, practically. It's going to be awesome.
• Hadrian's Wall, Britain. Sort of like Britannia's version of the Great Wall of China, but not so great. It does have important links to ancient Roman history, though, especially in terms of the Roman occupation of Britain. Besides, I'm sure it'll be nice to visit a country where English is the national language.

There's also a possibility of a trip to Sweden, Finland, or even Russia. But if I accomplish everything on that list above, then I'll be pretty happy with myself. The hours at work will be long: they're expecting 50-hour work weeks as a bare minimum. This might make getting away a little difficult, but I'm not one to turn down a challenge.

I have a lot of things to do before I go. I'll be keeping my place here in Edmonton, and my landlord has agreed to forward any important mail to me in Germany along with keeping an eye on my suite to make sure nothing happens. I need to register with the Canadian embassy in Germany, even though it's doubtful that anything will happen, it seems to be a prudent measure.

I'll be upgrading the RAID configuration on the RoadRunner X server to RAID6 sometime this week. Thomas has agreed to replace any hard drives that crash while I'm gone, but RAID6 will allow two disks to fail without any affect on RoadRunner X's service. The configuration will be 6x120GB drives, for an array of 480GB in size. As drives fail, they will be replaced with 500GB drives. By the time I arrive back (either in the summer or fall,) I'll replace the remaining 120GB drives with 500GB counterparts. After all six drives have been replaced, then I'll rebuild the array into a 6x500GB RAID6 for a total of 2TB. That upgrade should keep the server going for a few more years until beyond 2010.

As for Germany, I'll be posting plenty of photos and journal entries about the goings-on there. Until then, bon voyage!

(ps, Germany reportedly has a great train infrastructure. The train I'll be taking from Munich to Nuremberg can reach speeds of 300kph. This fact alone is awesome.)

I've been doing a lot of playing, listening, and watching lately. It all started with my trip to Vancouver over the holidays. So, instead of going into a whole ton of detail, here are some mini-reviews in typical, biased "Cyan grade" style.

Alien vs. Predator 2 (Requiem): I saw this film with Kazzie and her friend Meg at Metrotown. It was a complete waste of time, and quite frankly, I was embarassed to be seen in the theatre watching this crap. Being able to hang out with some old friends was the only thing that made the trip worthwhile, but this film is so bad that it's not even worth wasting bandwidth to download. I'm not kidding. F

"Melt" by Cold Storage: Some of you might remember the name Cold Storage from Wipeout, as he's done a lot of the music for that series of high-tech racing games. He did the entire soundtrack for the first Wipeout game, then a few bits and pieces here and there after that. I always thought that Cold Storage was a big name from the UK, but imagine my surprise when I found out that he's just an independent musician. Hell, he composed some music on the Amiga, in true oldschool demoscene style. I snatched up this latest album, called "Melt", and it is truly one of the best albums I've ever listened to. Thank you, God, for creating video game music and great musicians such as this. A+

Cloverfield: Thomas, his wife Anita, plus a few of their friends and I all went to see this legendary film on opening night. (The film was a legend even before opening night.) I thought I've seen some packed theatres in my time, but this was ridiculous! Vancouver has nothing on packing theatres as tightly as this place. Had I waited in line for some popcorn, it would've taken an hour, no joke. The movie itself was excellent, a lot of fun, with tons of funny one- liners and exciting action. Apparently, there have been rumours of people becoming so sick and throwing up because of the (purposely) jerky camera movements, but I didn't feel it. I'd pay money to watch it in the theatre again. It's that good. A+

Pitch Black: Another movie recommended to me by Thomas, and I really enjoyed it. I had no clue it was a sci-fi film, but it has that nice grittiness to it that "Alien" does, in that the future isn't always such a happy and cheery place. The characters are intriguing and the pace is perfectly done. How I ever missed watching this film in the first place is beyond me. A

Children of Men: It never ceases to amaze me about how well Thomas is able to recommend a film that piques my interest. How I ever passed up seeing a dystopian film is beyond me. The camera work here is beautiful, and the story is developed and executed perfectly. This is another movie that makes you think about how humanity would react given the circumstances. It also leaves you craving more answers about what happened on the outside. A

Chronicles of Riddick: I had no clue that this was a sequel to Pitch Black, but given how much I enjoyed the first film, I couldn't pass up a second. I ignored this film when it came out in theatres, because you have a tendancy to attach a name like "Vin Diesel" to brainless action films. This movie ratchets up the action a lot more than the first one, to be sure, but it was still enjoyable. I still prefer Pitch Black by far, but this movie has my respect. As a footnote, the big, evil, imperical race in this film greatly reminded me of the Seanchan from the Wheel of Time series. B

Disgaea: My old favourite from the PS2 is now on the PSP, and it's all I've been playing for a few months, now. They fixed some of the more annoying bugs, such as characters speaking in Japanese or English on the battlefield regardless of your language settings. They also added some very nice new features, such as the ability to change the music used in the item world. Since I play this pretty much every day, on the way home on the bus, I've proceeded much further than I ever did on the PS2. A+

Dungeon Maker: Another RPG for the PSP, this time with an unusual twist. You must create a dungeon for the purpose of attracting monsters. Then, you enter the dungeon to kill these monsters and steal their treasure. You can use various different types of room decor, tiling, etc, in the hopes of luring monsters. It's fun for the first while, but then it becomes a bit boring. It's a hack and slash to the highest degree, which isn't a bad thing, but the monotony sure is. Also, having varying types of music would've been a good idea, too. C+

Final Fantasy Tactics: Yet another classic that made it to the PSP. They did right, like Disgaea, by using the PSP's full 16:9 aspect ratio. Unfortunately, the font used is a bit too small for my crappy eyes to see properly. I'm sure most other people don't have this complaint, but it makes the game pretty tough to play for me. Once I'm through with Disgaea, I'll likely give this a go, but until then it gets to sit on my shelf in its shiny new factory wrap. B

Final Fantasy I: This remake for the PSP is similar to Final Fantasy Origins for the PSX, except that it has completely redone graphics. The graphics look really, really nice. Unfortunately, they took the "hard" mode out, so the game is still obscenely easy to finish. Never the less, it always amazes me when I can enjoy a classic like this over and over again. A+

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles: Everyone (myself included) bought this game so that they could play Symphony of the Night while on the go. Imagine how deeply my disappointment ran when A) Symphony of the Night isn't immediately accessible from the main menu, and B) After slaving through the shitty gameplay that makes up the Dracula X remake, you get to play through Symphony of the Night in 4:3! I mean, with such titles like Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics making full use of the PSP's 16:9 display (without stretching the image,) it would've been great to see that in Symphony of the Night. But no. The Dracula X remake is even more disappointing, with stiff gameplay that makes me feel like I'm playing the original Castlevania on the NES. You'd think they would have learned how to make engaging, fluid Castlevania games after Symphony of the Night. Apparently not. D

American Gladiators: I remember watching this television classic when I was a kid, and what better time to bring it back than when the writer's strike is going on? It still has decent entertainment value, but it'd be even better if they removed all of those cheesy pre and post-event interviews. I mean, you don't see television reporters skating out onto the ice after a goal and interviewing the players on the spot at an NHL game, do you? Just let them play, damn it. C

The Border: This is the CBC's take on "24", but not nearly as over the top. It doesn't focus on any one main story arc, but instead features the happenings of a fictional government entity called "ICS" ("Immigration and Customs Security") that is responsible for Canadian border security in the same way that Homeland Security is in the US. You get funny Canadian tie-ins everywhere, like Tim Horton's cups in people's hands or on their desks, plus the friendly jabbing that goes on with Americans. The head of CSIS is portrayed as a guy who treats the ICS like his bastard child, and there's some great acting there. You also get some great shots of Parliament Hill and the minister in control of both CSIS and ICS. Unfortunately, the show also suffers from the usual poor Canadian production quality and lack of direction. As a bonus, The Border features Sofia Milos of CSI: Miami fame as an arrogant Homeland Security agent. B

The West Wing: Now, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be murdered by any self-respecting Canadian just for admitting that I enjoy watching 'American Gladiators' and 'The West Wing', but the whole American political establishment is interesting to watch. I enjoy this show for the same reason that I enjoy reading Tom Clancy books, and it's pretty clear that the guys who thought this show up were rather witty and well informed. I just finished the third season, and so far the acting as been excellent. A+

I also just found a directory full of Korean music while going through my horde of MP3's. I completely forgot that all of this was there at all. Most of this stuff is from my DDR playing days, so it brings back memories. But a lot of the selection is pretty decent. I have no clue what they're talking about, but at least the beat is pretty catchy. Then an odd notion struck me; I don't understand a word these people are saying, but, here I am listening to it because I can. Now think of all of the people in North Korea who *could* understand what the music means, but don't have the privilege of watching or listening to whatever they want.

Sort of puts life into perspective, doesn't it?

Thank you very much for taking the time to put your IKEA experience on paper. However I am very disappointed that it wasn't up to your expectations. The only way we can address issues and improve our customer service and shopping experience is to listen to our customers.

It is unfortunate that we will lose your business after 20 years of meeting your expectations. It is never our intention to disappoint any of our customers and we work very hard to meet our "Customer Promise". IKEA stands behind every product we sell and we make decisions on our policies with the customers' best interest at the heart of everything we do.

Again I thank you for your time and valuable feedback. Although you said you were not interested in receiving any compensation, I have enclosed a cheque for the $71.00 delivery.

Best Regards

Jeff Russenholt
Services Manager
IKEA Edmonton

It's December 22nd, the last day of work before the Christmas holiday. I checked the weather forecast on Environment Canada's website from the comfort of my office on the 21st floor in Edmonton. Well, isn't that a surprise, rain for the entire duration of my trip to Vancouver. The day wrapped up quickly, and after wishing all of my co-workers a 'Merry Christmas', I was on my way down to meet the airport shuttle. Some might question the wisdom of traveling in one's formal work clothes, but, at the time I booked the ticket, I thought the trip should be pretty straight forward. So, with my laptop bag and suitcase in hand, I made my way down to meet the airport shuttle.

Unlike Vancouver, Edmonton International Airport is a fair distance away from the city, about 20km from the city limit or so. Because of this, there's no public transit out to the airport. But, there is a handy service known as the "SkyShuttle." For $25, you get a return trip to the airport and back. In anticipation for the trip, I loaded my credit card past its limit (like carrying a balance, but in your favour,) and didn't have any cash on me. While in the shuttle, the driver asks for payment, and I say that I'm going to pay with a credit card. You can hear the disappointment in the driver's voice as he says snappily, "Sorry, I can't get an authorization right now."

I just sit back and grin. I've played this game before. It's not a matter of whether he can get an authorization or not, it's a matter of wanting cash so that he can pocket it. What the driver doesn't know is that I've got no cash on me at all. Not a single penny. In the meanwhile, I look at the variety of 'Visa' stickers plastered throughout the vehicle.

So we arrive at the airport, and the driver takes care of my bags. He reminds me, "twenty-five dollars, please." I hand him my credit card, and you can see the disgust written all over his face. It's like I just gave him a rotten piece of meat. The driver sighs and fetches his old-school mechanical credit card swiper, shaking his head as he does so, "You should have given this to me while we were at a red light. Now we're wasting time." I remain still, I don't say anything. After all, I did explain the situation in the vehicle, but he held out for the cash.

He hands me a pen plus the receipt, and I look it over. There's a section for a tip, and most people wouldn't give a tip in this situation. But I look up at the guy, and this is one of those situations where you just *know* something will happen to your baggage if you don't give him a tip. I can hear the conversation already. "I'm sorry sir, I don't know what happened to your bags. Was the one back at the airport yours? The black one?" So, I write '$2.50' for the tip and hand it back with a smile. "Merry Christmas, sir", I say, before entering the terminal building.

I'm early, of course, so I've got lots of time to kill. Through check-in and security, no problem. So I hit up Montana's to have a bite to eat before boarding the plane. Everyone's consuming liquor like prohibition is coming in the new year or something. But who blames them? If you're going to be stuck on a multi-hour flight to Toronto, or wherever, you may as well let the liquor make the trip more enjoyable. I have no such luxury. "Just a coke, please", I say to the bartender. My burger and fries come, along with coleslaw, complete with plastic cutlery. Surprisingly, the meal is actually quite decent.

After killing some time on the Internet, I board the plane and we're off. It takes longer to travel from Vancouver to Maple Ridge than it does to fly from Edmonton to Vancouver, so the flight was nothing special. Except for the woman beside me with the kid who decided to puke all over everything. Thank god the flight was only an hour long.

I get off of the plane and it's raining. Welcome back. There's nobody to greet me at the airport except for the 7-11 clerk who happily hands me a pack of 10 transit tickets. I walk out into the rain and wait for the bus. Eventually it comes, but it's so humid and dark out that I can't even look out the window see the progress that has been made on the Canada Line as the bus rumbles past it. I disembark at Airport Station and walk over to the 98 B-Line stop, which is packed full of people desperately trying to crowd into their own little space under the shelter to stay out of the rain. I join the fray and look up at the electronic board that announces the next bus' arrival: "First 98 B-Line Arriving in 25 Minutes. Happy Holidays." I know it's going to be a long night.

The B-Line pulls up, but long after the sign announced a fictional bus arrival and departure. The bus is simply packed full of people, which is no surprise. I completely forgot about how over-burdened Vancouver's transit system is. I manage to squeeze my way in just around the blue line, but the bus is packed full of people like sardines. Sitting in one of the seats is an older guy noisily chewing on a sub from Subway. A particularly juicy piece of tomato falls onto the floor of the bus, but the guy doesn't care. To my right is a guy who keeps on twitching and looking back and forth nervously. Then, on cue, the Subway Guy drops his full cup of orange pop onto the floor, which then creeps its way towards my shoes. The guy doesn't give a shit. It's at this point that I knew wearing my formal work clothes while traveling was a huge mistake.

I disembark the sardine can at Burrard Station and look around. It hasn't been long enough, because I can still remember where everything is with amazing clarity. Nothing has changed, except for the Shangri-La, a building that towers over the rest of downtown Vancouver like an obelisk. It's still under construction, but you can tell that it's going to be an amazing building when it's finished. My luggage and I walk over to the stop for the 160 and wait in a shelter with a bunch of high school kids describing how drunk they're going to get once they get back home to Port Coquitlam.

The 160 trip goes without incident, and with tons of room, which is a welcome surprise. I disembark and walk over to a shelter at Coquitlam Station, luggage in hand, realizing now why I always prefer to pack things in a backpack. Everyone's huddled in the shelters, trying to stay out of the rain. Compared to Edmonton, the temperature is positively warm, but there is something oppressive about the rain. Waiting for a bus in Edmonton in the -20 degree cold is easier than this. But despite that, the trip seems so routine. I still know all of the buses, where they go, and the frequency of service. I'll probably take the map of the Vancouver transit system with me to the grave.

The 701 pulls up, and it's one of those fancy compressed natural gas buses. The marquee proudly displays "Maple Ridge East," and I get on board, happy to dispose of my luggage and laptop bag on the bus luggage rack. As we approach Maple Meadows Way, it's clear that the construction of the Golden Ears Bridge has completely screwed with the road layout. They've got the bus doing an obstacle course all around Maple Meadows Way Station. By now I'm terribly late. I originally planned to meet Shaun at the McDonald's on Dewdney Trunk Road, but it's now past midnight and Rotten Ronnie's has long since closed. So I go a few more stops, to Laity, and alight from my day's seventh form of transportation.

I walk down to Lougheed Highway, to the 7-11 there, to a pay phone so that I can call Shaun and let him know where I am. By the time I get there, I can only laugh at the fact that the phone has been vandalized. Of course it's vandalized. Why wouldn't it be? Everyone knows that pay phones exist only to be vandalized.

I look around, and the situation looks grim. I'm out in the middle of one of Vancouver's world-famous rain storms with a laptop bag, a large piece of luggage, in my formal work clothes, with no phone, and nowhere to stay. So, I walk in to the 7-11 and humbly ask the clerk, "I know it's not proper, but, do you mind if I use your phone for a second?" The clerk says, "Sure, man, no problem." I move my stuff to the side so that I can use the phone without disturbing anyone. Of course, I stupidly forgot to write Shaun's phone number down, so I've got to boot up my laptop (where I have it stored in a text file), and then write it down. It's somewhere near 1am by now, and I've got all sorts of locals grinning at me and making remarks like, "Nice laptop, man." Yeah. Thanks.

Shaun's phone is going directly to voice mail, and the number for the local cab company is busy. I hang up the phone and just stare blankly at the bright, ghost-white lighting. Now what? So, I chit-chat with the 7-11 clerk for a while, and I thank god that I got a clerk who is at least intelligent and friendly. There's no reason for them to let me loiter in the store like this. The guy doesn't have to let me use the phone, dialing the numbers over and over again like a collector. For a while, I almost become a part of the staff, joining in their bullshit sessions between customers wandering in and out. Meanwhile, I keep on trying Shaun and the cab company. Voice mail and busy. I ask the 7-11 guys, "Do you know of a hotel around here?"

The response I get isn't promising. "I don't know, man..."

Eventually, I get Shaun on the phone. "Hey!", he says, happy to hear from me, "my battery is about.." *click* Shit. I call back right away and it's back to the voice mail. All I need to say is that I'm at the 7-11 practically next door to his place, and he'll understand. I call again, then again.. and again. No luck.

Then I finally get through again and pass the word along. Five minutes later, Shaun pulls up and I thank the 7-11 guys for their help. All I can do is apologize for being a pain in the ass, but all they say is, "Hey, don't worry about it, man. Merry Christmas." I smile and say, "Merry Christmas" before leaving with all of my stuff in tow. Thirty minutes later, I'm sound asleep at Shaun's place.

If you were forced to choose how you would die, what would you choose? It's a bit of a morbid question, but a rather fascinating one. How would you live out those last few days before you died?

My answer to the question is that I'd like to be sent back in time and be placed on the Titanic, first class. There's just something about that era in history, the way that people interacted with each other, that makes it unusually appealing to me. Everything about the Titanic spoke quality. The cutlery, the dining rooms, the Grand Staircase in first class, everything.

So, on the Titanic, you had the best of everything. You had classy people in a classy environment, and the whole thing screamed high society. To live a couple of days like that, to interact with that authentic, traditional kind of atmosphere would undoubtedly be the best days of my life. It'd be interesting to speak with the likes of John Jacob Astor and get his view on the world as it was then, before World War I. Or maybe play a round of cards in the smoking lounge. Or pay a visit to the radio room and marvel at a real, live spark-gap transmitter operating on 500hz (called "500 kilocycles" back then) and talk some shop with Jack Phillips and Harold Bride.

There's just something fascinating about this stuff. My interest in ancient Roman history mostly involves how "proper society" interacted back then. There exist these things called "renaissance faires" where the participants dress up in traditional Victorian outfits and act out various things one would do back then as a member of proper society. Lady Kalessia goes to these frequently, and is quite passionate about them. In one case, where I presume someone showed up dressed inappropriately for the period, she wrote a rant in her journal about how one should either dress the part or GTFO. I have a great amount of respect for her because of that attitude, trust me.

Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy watching the cogs of high society turn, I'm still just a working-class computer geek who struggles through a lot of social situations. I'm a lot better than I was ten years ago, that's for sure, but there's still a lot of work to be done. For the most part, the toughest thing is breaking the ice with people I don't know, along with dressing (and looking) like I belong. Most people think I over-analyze things like this, but, I'm a perfectionist and this is where it shows. I worry about just about everything: how I speak, where my hands are, how I sit, how I eat, and so on. Besides, do you really expect someone whose job title includes the word "analyst" to not analyze these sorts of things?

So, you can imagine both the excitement and horror of being invited to an event that is basically as formal as they come. The invitation included a coupon for a discount on a tuxedo rental. Originally, I was going to go this route and rent a tuxedo, until most people I spoke to said they were just wearing regular suits. So, not wanting to be the odd man out, I decided to wear a suit as well.

I showed up to the event on time, at 5:00pm, checked my coat, and looked around. "As formal as they come" doesn't do justice to how formal this thing really was. To give some perspective on it, my working-class self was the worst dressed person there, hands down. Virtually everyone else was wearing a black-and-white tuxedo, and here I was wearing a black suit with a red dress shirt and tie. Everyone who was there already could be seen milling around, chatting amongst themselves while immaculately-dressed waiters and waitresses roamed the room with platters of champagne and bacon-wrapped scallops.

So, here I was, by myself, dressed badly, and surrounded by very important people, none of who I knew. Nobody was talking to me, and I was too scared to talk to anyone else. So, I nervously stood around and felt like I was holding my dick in my hand for all of twenty to thirty minutes before I simply cracked under the pressure and went home. There was nobody to talk to, I wasn't dressed properly for the occasion, I don't drink liquor, and the prospect of having to sit down at a randomly assigned table surrounded by people I don't know and go through this whole routine again for six hours or longer was just too much.

To put it simply, I was on the first class deck of the Titanic, and I felt like an A-Grade Idiot. To say that I'm disappointed with myself is an understatement.

A visit to IKEA to purchase furniture has been a ritual in my family for over twenty years. As far as I can remember, being six years old and living in Vegreville, Alberta, paying a visit to IKEA has always been a memorable experience. There has always been a certain amount of charm involved with visiting an IKEA store. Back then, IKEA Edmonton was located near West Edmonton Mall. I hadn't been back to the Edmonton location since then, having lived in the Vancouver area for the past ten years. Now that I've moved back to the prairies, sans furniture, I figured a trip to the new Edmonton location at the South Edmonton Common was in order.

Before I continue, I would like to reiterate that my IKEA experience has always been a pleasurable one. However, this time, something changed. Most of my experience has been with IKEA Coquitlam, where exceptional customer service and outstanding value for money has always been the order of the day. I would like to extend the highest of commendations to the employees of IKEA Coquitlam for a job well done. Now that I'm back in the prairies, their professionalism is dearly missed.

I must also mention that this letter is an "open" letter, in the sense that it has been posted both to my personal online journal and website (at http://cyan.rrx.ca/ikea.shtml) This letter is thus available for anyone of the general public to read. To be fair to IKEA, any responses received (or the lack thereof) will be posted as an addendum to the original letter.

There is no intention to place blame or "point fingers" in this letter. I simply wish to state the facts of my experience so that IKEA is made aware of what happened. I am purposely omitting the names of customer service representatives and employees, as it is not my intention to get any single person into trouble.

On November 17th, 2007, I walked in to the IKEA Edmonton location expecting to spend approximately $1,000 to completely outfit my computer room with a brand new computer desk, computer chair, two shelves, and an auxiliary "work bench" desk. Since the location is on the far south side of the city, it took me a fair amount of time to arrive from the far north side.

I immediately went to the office furniture area and spent considerable time, perhaps an hour, reviewing my options. No employees offered assistance, despite being present for so long. Eventually, I settled on two "Galant" desk sets, priced at approximately $400.00 each, a chair, shelves, a wastepaper basket, CD holder, and a desk pad. Having written down my choices, I went downstairs to the self-serve furniture area and began loading my selections onto a shopping cart.

After looking around for some time, I decided to speak with an IKEA employee in the self-serve area. As it turns out, I couldn't find the "Galant" desks, and just needed to be pointed to the correct aisle so that I could load up my selection and leave. Instead of giving me a straight answer to my question, the self-serve employee stood in front of his computer and continued to type away. Not wishing to disturb him, I waited for approximately ten to fifteen minutes before he finally handed me a sheet of paper. He then said, "Just take this to the front, and you're good to go."

There was no explanation given as to why I was given a sheet of paper, or what the paper was for, or where the furniture I wanted even was. Looking the paper over, and reading the explanation at the bottom, it turns out that I had to use the paper to pay for my furniture, and then pick it up at a separate counter on the other side of the till.

Upon arriving at the till, I handed the paper over to the young lady working the register that day, and explained, "I also need to buy home delivery for these." Her response was to stare at me blankly before uttering, "Oh.. uh... I'm just going to pretend you didn't tell me that." I frowned a little and replied, "Is there a problem?"

She sighed and looked over the piece of paper, which I now understand is called a "Cash & Carry" order, despite the fact that I wasn't paying in cash, nor was I going to be carrying it out of the store. Fortunately, the young lady pointed out that I was missing a few things for my "Galant" desks on the order, such as a desk leg and table top. She explained that I had to go back to the employee in the self-serve department and request the missing pieces along with home delivery.

I thanked her for her assistance and turned my shopping cart around to go back to the self-serve department. I couldn't find the same employee I dealt with earlier, but after a couple of minutes, I was able to locate another self-serve employee. I explained to him that I needed extra parts for my desks, and that I was also in the need of home delivery for the items.

Unfortunately, the self-serve employee had a rather difficult time finding the items I needed. Fifteen minutes later, I had a new "Cash & Carry" order in my hands. The order didn't mention anything about home delivery, so I mentioned it to the employee. He replied, "We don't do that here. You've gotta go up to the till and do that."

So, I went back to the till and explained the situation to the same lady as before. She nodded and said, "Yeah, I spoke with my supervisor about it, and you can pay for your delivery right here." After paying $923.21 on my debit card, inclusive of $73.00 for shipping, I was on my way to the home delivery desk.

The employee at the home delivery desk began taking all of my information, and then said, "We can't take the small items." I looked down at the wastepaper basket, CD case, and desk pad. I then asked, "You mean these things? I paid the extra dollar per item at the till to have these shipped, and it would be mighty inconvenient if I had to take these home right now. There's no way you could accept these?" The delivery clerk shrugged his shoulders and said, "No, I can't. Sorry." I frowned and asked, "What about the extra money I paid to have these shipped?" Again he shrugged and said, "Sorry."

I sighed and picked up the small items along with my delivery order. The delivery date was set for the evening of November 20th, 2007, between 5pm and 7pm.

Having completed my day at IKEA, I went back upstairs to relax a little by having dinner at the restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant was completely filthy. The floors were dirty, and there were french fries spilled and stepped on all over the ground. By the way the fries were ground in to the floor, it was clear that this was not a recent spill.

After paying for my food, I sat down with my wastepaper basket, CD case, and desk pad that I was not allowed to ship earlier, despite having paid for it. I reached for my glass to have a refreshing drink of loganberry juice, only to discover that the glass hadn't been cleaned properly! The outside was sticky and dirty, as if something had spilled over the side previously and wasn't washed off. Pushing the glass away in disgust, I finished my meal as quickly as I could so that I could leave.

Stepping up to leave, again with my wastepaper basket, CD case, and desk pad in tow, I walked over to the elevator by the entrance, so that I could use it to go down to the lower level and leave the building. But it appears that someone had bolted a piece of sheet metal over the elevator call button, preventing people from the top floor getting down to the bottom. With items in tow, I had to walk my way through the entirety of the store before exiting.

Later, on the way home, while reviewing the delivery order receipt, I noticed a few discrepancies. My last name was spelled incorrectly, as "Sommerfelf", and my postal code was an incorrect "T5L 0N4" The order number was 455582. The section where the delivery desk employee was to sign, was left mysteriously blank. I have included a copy of the delivery order along with this letter.

On Tuesday, I left work early so that I could be home in time to receive the order. I arrived at 5:00pm and waited. By the time 7:00pm rolled around, I hadn't heard from anyone, so I decided to call the IKEA store and see what happened with my order.

I spoke with a lady on the phone, and asked, "Is my order arriving today, or, has something happened to it?" She put me on hold while she investigated. She then came back and explained, "Someone was at your house at 5:30pm to make the delivery, but nobody was home." I replied, "I was here, but that's okay, these things happen. When will they be making another attempt, so that I can get off of work early then, too?" The answer she gave me was astonishing: "They won't be making another attempt."

There was dead silence on the phone for a few seconds as my mind processed what she had just told me. I knew of no courier or delivery company in the world that would refuse to make a second attempt, especially in light of the fact that I was here within the period stated on the delivery order. Shocked, the only reply I could give was, "Excuse me?" Again, she explained, "There won't be a second delivery attempt."

"So, what happens to my furniture, then?", I asked. She replied, "You can come to the store and get it, if you like." I sighed and looked over at the clock. It would be well past closing by the time I arrived to the IKEA Edmonton location. "What do I have to do if I'd like it to be delivered again?", I asked. The lady responded, "You'll have to come into the store and pay $73.00 again." Again, silence fell over the telephone as astonishment prevailed. For the grand total of $146.00 for delivery, it would have been somewhere in the order of three times as much as a taxi cab from one side of the city to the other.I decided to give it one last shot. I asked, "Is there any way to take care of this over the telephone?" To which the lady responded, "No." I then asked, "If I'd like a refund on the purchase, considering that you have all of my cash and all of my furniture, what would I have to do?" She responded, "You'd have to come into the store." Again, I was shocked. Deciding I had no other recourse, I asked, "Could I speak to your supervisor, please?" Her response was, "I'm sorry, there's no supervisor available. You'll have to call back tomorrow."

The next day, I called the store and asked to speak with a supervisor or manager. I was then forwarded to the "resolutions" department, despite being under the impression that I was going to be speaking directly with a store supervisor or manager. I explained to the lady in the resolutions department about what exactly happened, and she said, "No problem. Unfortunately, you'll have to go back to the store for your refund, but you will get a refund." I asked, "Is that refund inclusive of the shipping fee?" To which she responded, "Yes." Before hanging up, I was given SAMS case number 1280086.

Again, I left work early on November 21st so that I could arrive at the IKEA store in decent time. I went to the returns counter, with receipt in hand, and explained what had happened. I provided my SAMS case number, and the employee left without explaining why he was leaving the counter. Ten or fifteen minutes later, the employee re-emerged and explained that my refund would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of seven hundred dollars.

I frowned and asked, "The receipt here says I paid $923.21, so why is there a two hundred dollar difference?" The employee shrugged and didn't have an answer. I asked to speak with his supervisor, and another ten or fifteen minutes later, the supervisor emerged.

She asked, "I understand you have a question about some of the merchandise you didn't receive?" I nodded and said, "Well, I didn't receive any of it, you see. It's all still here in the store." The supervisor looked over the receipt and tapped the section of the receipt that listed all of my "Galant" desks. She asked me, "So you didn't receive any of this merchandise?" I answered, "No." She then said, "Wait here for a few minutes, and we'll see what happened."

Approximately thirty minutes later, she emerged from the back and explained, "We have you on tape removing the merchandise from the store." I frowned at her and said, "What?" She again explained, "We have you on tape." At that moment, it dawned on me that she was speaking of the wastepaper basket, CD case, and desk pad, totaling approximately twenty dollars or so. Up until that point, I had completely forgotten about those items, having been so focused on the desks. I sighed and said, "Yes, I took those things, but the vast majority of the order, over 95% of the value of it, was left here in the store."

She then said, "Well, we can process this refund for you, but the total refund will be $825.74" I asked, "Why did the employee give me a figure in the seven hundred dollar range?" To which she had no response to my question and instead repeated, "The total refund will be $825.74." I then asked, "So the delivery fee is omitted from this refund, then?" To which she replied, "Yes."

I attempted to explain to her that the SAMS case with the resolutions department should guarantee me a full refund, inclusive of the shipping fee. The supervisor responded, "We have no record of that on the case."

To be quite honest, I was very upset by this point, but managed to stay calm. So, I asked, "Since you can so deftly find me on tape taking home twenty dollars worth of merchandise, why don't you find the audio recording that has resolutions promising me my refund for the shipping fee?" She responded, "I can't do that, the call center is somewhere in Montreal, and I don't have access to that." I asked again, considering that listening to audio tape should be far less difficult than pulling a video tape, and she said, "Well, I can call the call center tomorrow and then call you back at work with my findings." I agreed, and left the store with a $825.74 refund, having spent $71.00 for a delivery I never received.

As of today, December 5th, 2007, I have yet to hear back from this supervisor about the contents of my call with the resolutions department regarding SAMS case number 1280086.

The next day, November 22nd, I paid a visit to Staples Business Depot. This particular Staples store is within walking distance from where I work, so myself and a coworker decided to take a look at what furniture was available through my lunch break. To my amazement, there was a desk and hutch for $120, a work desk for $150, two shelves for $70 each, and a great leather computer chair for $200. The total after tax was $646.46.

The employee at Staples, Ian, was more than happy to help with my purchase and made the entire process as simple and seamless as possible. I asked Ian about delivery fees, to which he said, "Delivery is free on these items." I then asked about what happens in the case of non-delivery, and Ian explained, "Well, the driver will just try again the next day." Just to be sure that I was clear, I asked, "There's no delivery fee, and I don't have to pay anything if the delivery somehow gets missed?" He shook his head and said, "Nope."

As promised, the furniture arrived and proved to be an excellent addition to my home. Since then, Staples has been recommended to dozens of friends, family, and coworkers as an excellent, affordable location to purchase furniture. I have included the Staples receipt with this letter.

Even more surprising is that, when you compare the quality and size of the Staples furniture against the offerings from IKEA, it is clear that Staples offers a superior product for a better price. For example, the "Galant" desk from IKEA for $400.00, which only included a table top and legs, pales in comparison to the full-size "Taurus" corner desk from Staples, inclusive of hutch, keyboard tray, and computer trolley for $120. Even the $150 "Gemini" corner desk appears to be of superior quality and larger size than the IKEA "Galant" counterpart for $400.

Why is it that Staples is able to offer free shipping, including retries on failed delivery attempts, on $646.46 worth of merchandise, but IKEA can not on a $923.21 purchase? Furthermore, why doesn't IKEA offer free delivery retries at all? What audit procedures does IKEA have in place to ensure that their delivery drivers are actually at the correct address, at the correct time on home deliveries? Why are desks of superior quality more affordable at a smaller, more convenient store? Why didn't the supervisor call me back as she promised? Why was the IKEA restaurant so filthy? I imagine that these are questions that future IKEA customers may ask.

This letter is not a request for a refund, nor is it placing blame on any one person or event. It's a story of how a relationship twenty years in the making was damaged by one visit to IKEA Edmonton. I understand that working conditions in Alberta have made good help hard to find, but I believe my experience to be a little too extraordinary for this to be an acceptable excuse.

As far as I'm concerned, IKEA is welcome to keep my seventy-one dollars. Not only is that money now a tax write-off, but it's also investment money well spent. It introduced me to Staples and their exciting line of affordable, quality business products. It introduced me to their friendly, professional staff, and the possibility of having all of my needs taken care of in one hour, as opposed to multiple hours split over multiple trips.

Friday will be my final day in Grande Cache, Alberta, a town of 4,000 people and in the middle of nowhere. I've stayed here for exactly six months, and it's been like a gigantic breath of fresh air. The attitudes of the people here have been warm and friendly, and it's been interesting to live as an adult in a town that I grew up in as a kid. To be honest, I'll miss the town and all of its nuances.

Amateur radio station VA6RRX was shut down permanently today, put into boxes to await its arrival at a new QTH. Despite being in a basement suite, I hope that the station will be bigger and better than ever. The services offered will rival even the best repeaters: IRLP, APRS, a packet BBS, and an autopatch that links in with Asterisk. I've got a TNC-X on the way, which is sent all in parts much like an old Heathkit. The projects won't stop, to be sure.

I will be APRS beaconing as VA6WY-13 for my trip from Grande Cache to Edmonton. Since I'm departing at 3:00am MDT on Saturday, I doubt many people will be watching. But, if you'd like to watch my progress, you can do it here: http://aprs.fi/ Be sure to put in "VA6WY-13" for the callsign, and you can watch me traverse the Great Province of Alberta in realtime.

RoadRunner X will have a dialup number in Edmonton running at 33.6kbps: (780) 473-RRX0. It's going to feel great to have a dialup board again.

There's no question about my impact on the business here. Income is up in a big way since I've arrived, and it continues to grow. I've left behind some tools and business contacts that should help Stephen out in the long run. In the six months I've been here, I've had to yell at a customer exactly zero times. Yelling would be an almost monthly occurrence in Burnaby, but the attitude of people out here is noticeably different.

For example, if I sold a computer to a customer in Burnaby, and they had difficulty in getting the sound card to work, they would come back to the store and demand their money back, claiming it was my negligence. But people here simply call and say, "the sound card doesn't work", and that's it. No finger pointing, no attitude, nothing. We then fix the problem and the customer is grateful. Whether this is a "BC vs. Alberta" thing, or "City vs. Small Town" thing, I don't know. Since I won't be working retail in Edmonton, I don't know if I'll ever have it figured out. Most people have bets on it being a "City vs. Small Town" thing, but I think it may be more of a "BC vs. Alberta" thing than people may think.

A real pleasure has been the compliments I've received from customers. I got a few of these in BC, mostly in regards to the quality of my work. But here, in Grande Cache, the compliments have been about my customer service. A few people say that the way I talk makes it sound like I'm running some kind of Fortune 500 company, others have said that I'm just a pleasure to speak with. These customer compliments mean more to me than they may know, and I appreciate each one.

Yesterday, I was on the telephone with the owner of one of the local commercial radio repeater sites. A big client of ours has a big project in mind involving a lot of radio stuff, and it's a real shame that I won't be around to see it through. It will be a very involved, fascinating project, to be sure. Since I came up with the solution for the client, I passed on the information to Stephen so that he can implement it while I'm away. At any rate, I was explaining the implementation of the project to the site owner, and out of nowhere he asked: "You wouldn't happen to be looking for new employment, would you?"

I could only laugh. I explained my situation with Deloitte, and he responded, "Yeah, I guess you can't turn that one down, can you?" Never the less, it felt good to be someone whose skills are in demand.

Lastly, I went to visit Grande Cache Community High School, a school I hadn't set foot in for over ten years. Most importantly, I wanted to speak with Mr. Warenycia, my former computer teacher. To be honest, I always felt that we, as a group, always gave him a hard time. Especially when he went out of his way to create courses for us kids who were clearly over his head in the area of computer knowledge. Only as an adult can I now fully appreciate the efforts he went through to make these sorts of things happen, and I feel terrible that -- as a kid -- I gave him such a hard time.

His response blew me away. In response to my apology, he said that any hard time that I had given him was overshadowed by my positive impact in the community in regards to computers. I was a little confused by this at first, but he explained that I always seemed to have a knack for galvanizing people around me in the way of computers. He continued to say that I helped kids "think outside the box" and that he wished that someone like myself was in the school today, since today's kids have it too easy in the way of computers.

We spoke a bit more, about how various people were doing, including Thomas (who is now my new boss.) Before leaving, I gave him Thomas' business card.

On my way back home, it occurred to me that what he said is true. Grande Cache had no idea what IRC was before I introduced it. I ran one of the towns most successful bulletin board systems. Lastly, it is true that there was a pretty good core group of computer kids in the school; I just never had thought that I was the one responsible for that. For these sorts of compliments to come from a teacher is nothing short of extraordinary.

Let me tell you, it has been absolutely refreshing to be around so many positive people for a change. I've absolutely had it with the perpetually depressed, negative people who feel the need to bullshit or talk trash. From here it's onwards and upwards.

In closing I'd like to thank Stephen Joseph for being a great friend and giving me the opportunity to work for him and improve his business, Daryl Taitinger (VE6DJT) for being an outstanding amateur radio mentor in a community with only eight of us hams, and the folks at the Grandview for putting up with my unpleasant face every morning. Thanks also to Brian Houlihan for making me a welcome guest in his home, the great food and late-night rounds of Hearts, and of course to John Warenycia for his advice. You're all friends in my book, and all will be missed. Last, but not least, a big thanks to Thomas Matthews for giving me the unique opportunity to work for a great company. The work will be be fascinating, surely. I'm looking forward to the challenge.

That's all for now. See you all in Edmonton, City of Champions!

Hey,

This is by far the best Synchronet BBS I've seen lately. I recently got back into BBS'ing and have noticed that there are SO many out-of-the-box Synchro systems and everything feels so bland. It's nice that you managed to stick with the best software and not make it look like everything else.

I'm impresses that you managed to get the doors to work under DOSEMU. I tried the same setup a few years ago and it was a huge hassle, so I never got it going. I just found out about the DOSEMU patch.. that must have been a big help. Congrats on a working Linux-based BBS!

I read your bulletins. Very good that you have these up. It will help attract the right kind of users. I'm listening to Nectarine as we speak.

One other thing... you have a small number of doors.. which is a *good* thing! Your TW2002 game is one of the most populated around (I mean a local game, not the TW game server). I'm looking for a game to play that players cannot use SWATH.

The only thing I really, *really* miss is active games of Iron Ox. It has to be the best door game I've ever played.

Back to the number of door games: I think having a small number of the most played and best door games is the way to go because you want them to be as populated as possible given the lack of BBS users still around. It would be nice if there were only a select few, say 10-20 *good* BBS's in existence.. and everyone all called these few. Then at least the games would have players in them !

Ok, well, my rant is over.. I will try to get friends to call and get into the games...

Wow I just noticed I'm using pico... amazing. I love Linux :)

Since I'll be departing Grande Cache shortly, I thought it'd be best to wrap up my "series" on the delicacies of fine dining in Grande Cache. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the best food to be had in Grande Cache is not in the restaurants, but the houses of everyday people who enjoy putting together a home-cooked meal. For example, last night between games of Hearts, I had some rather fine BBQ Elk. Ironically, the last time I had game meat was right here in Grande Cache, over ten years ago. I'm not one to turn down new tastes, and Elk tasted like something between beef and pork. Throughout the meal, Brian was goading me, "Are you sure you don't need any HP sauce? Are you sure? Absolutely sure?" More on this below ;)

The goal was to sample every possible place there was to get prepared food in Grande Cache. Since my last entry, people suggested places that I had either forgotten about, or didn't know they had existed at all. Some of them came with stern warnings, like eating at a place was likely to give me food poisoning, so it turned out to be an interesting experience. Without further delay, here's the rest of my review.

Petro Canada - It's pretty strange to look for food at a gas station, but, the Petro Canada here has a full sub assembly station somewhat similar to Subway. The difference is that all the ingredients look like they've all been purchased from the local grocery store. The plus side to this place is that when you order a sub, you get a sub overloaded with meat and veggies. This is a nice contrast to Subway, where you have to ask for "extra lettuce" just to get a respectable amount on the sub. I ate half a sub for lunch, the other half for supper, and I was done. The downsides are the price (think more expensive than Quizno's), and the taste (which isn't anything special -- you could go down to the grocery store and put the sub together yourself.) C

Big Horn Restaurant - This place is exactly as I remember it ten years ago. It's a bit out of the way, looks a little run down, and touts video lottery terminals as its main selling point. In other words, it's your classic greasy spoon type of place. Since I was still on the quest to find Grande Cache's best steak, I decided to order a New York, rare, with corn chowder to start. The waitress looked like I was putting her out of her way by ordering food. The chowder arrived, bland and uninspired; I felt like I was eating army rations or something. When my steak came, it was charred! We're talking Chicago charred. I sighed and reached for the HP sauce, knowing I'd have to drown the steak to make it edible. Cutting right through the center, the steak was well done. How the order got changed from "rare" to "Chicago well done", I'll never know. The HP sauce had never been opened before, so I had to peel the protective plastic off of the top. When I retell this story to some of the locals, they look at me wide-eyed and exclaim, "you actually *ate* at that place?!" D-

Greenhouse Coffee Spot - Apparently the Chinese smorg on Friday is to die for, but the food I sampled from under the heat lamps tasted pretty boring. I'm not quite sure why they even bother, considering the Dragon Palace has a stranglehold on western-style Chinese food in this town. So I went back a week later and decided to try something a bit more western: fish and chips. The tartar sauce arrived to me looking like it had been sitting in the serving dish for a few hours, although the fish was okay. But considering that there are so many other restaurants in town that do mediocre food better than this place, how does it continue to thrive? C-

The Bistro - Only in Grande Cache can you get away with calling your restaurant something as generic as this. I'm sure if someone opened up a diner and called it "The Restaurant", the owner would be heralded as some kind of genius. This place is only open for lunch, but the atmosphere is chatty and happy with excellent decor. The food, however, is outstanding. The ingredients are fresh, delicious, and prepared like the cook actually cares. I have yet to encounter something on the menu that I don't like. This place is hands down the best place to eat in Grande Cache for lunch. It's a shame that they don't open for supper. B+

Aunty's - Really just a convenience store down near Phase 5, they have a small little section that promises "pizza, burgers, fries, and more!" There's a little kitchen area off to one side along with some tables where you can sit and eat. Curious, I approached the till and waited. And waited... and waited. I think I was standing there for about five minutes or so, and despite there being someone behind the counter pretending to be working furiously (I'm not quite sure what there is to clean if you don't ever serve your customers,) I never did get the food I was looking for. I left to go eat somewhere else, instead. F

That's it, the complete list of places to go eat in Grande Cache, should you ever find yourself here. The only other exceptions to this are the other gas stations that offer pre-packaged food and the like, plus the local grocery store. But since none of these places offer food prepared on the fly by an actual human, I didn't include them in the list. I wish I had another recipe to share, like "Cyan's Screaming Suicide Wings" or something, but unfortunately nothing else has worked quite as well as the sticky lemon chicken. There was another Ramsay recipe involving a steak sandwich on a ciabatta, but the steak would always end up too dry, the ciabatta too toasted, and the flavours still not quite right. Alas, I'll have to try harder when I have a proper frying pan to fry steak in. (I also had to substitute spinach for watercress, since I got strange looks when I asked a grocery store attendant for watercress. In Edmonton, I'll also be able to get my hands on some fresh thyme instead of the powdered stuff.)

Instead, I'd like to share my opinions about Gordon Ramsay's new American show, "Kitchen Nightmares"

This show is based on a show by the same name in the UK, which focused on a new troubled restaurant in each episode. The restaurants had a variety of problems: disgusting kitchens, a chef who could care less, tacky decor, unreasonable pricing, outdated food, confrontational staff, and so on. The show would first highlight the restaurant's problems, and then Ramsay would take us through the process of correcting those problems and allowing the restaurant to thrive again. This would be accomplished through cleaning the kitchen, firing a chef, redecorating the dining room, adjusting prices, a new menu, giving staff an attitude adjustment, or whatever else Ramsay thought would improve the restaurant. It had a very strong focus on cuisine and was very entertaining while being informative.

It didn't take long for the success of the show to leak over to North America, where Fox picked it up and decided to run with an American version of Kitchen Nightmares. Again, Ramsay runs around various parts of New York in search of restaurants gone bad and fixes 'em up. Unfortunately, Fox made a few errors in their production:

• They removed Ramsay as narrator and replaced him with a generic Fox narrator. This is a shame, because Ramsay's voice is very well suited to narrating, and it helps to give better insight into what he was thinking at any given point. Perhaps Fox thought that the Americans wouldn't be able to understand his British accent?
• They introduced music into the series, which feels awkward and out of place at times. It's not like they're filming "Titanic," here! Even without music, Ramsay carries enough power with his own voice so that it punctuates his point without the need for music. A personality like Ramsay doesn't need music, trust me.
• They focused too much on personality conflicts instead of cuisine. Which is too bad, because in the UK series, you'd get very interesting in-depth looks into what Ramsay does on the food side of things to improve things. At Fox, they're more interested in capturing as many F-bombs on tape as possible .. which is confusing giving that they just have to beep them out anyway.

Now, even with these problems, the show is still quite interesting to watch. The first episode has probably been the worst by far, so if you don't like the show based on the first episode, please watch the second and give it a chance. After watching a few episodes, one can come to a few conclusions about American restaurants versus their British counterparts.

First of all, the American kitchens are by far filthier than their UK cousins. This is puzzling, because the process a restaurant has to go through to get on the show is quite lengthly; it's not like they don't know that Ramsay was on his way. With that in mind, if you were a restaurant owner, wouldn't you do the best to make sure the place is as clean as possible? Granted, if the kitchens were sparkling examples of perfection, there wouldn't be much of a show, but it does make you wonder what some of these owners were thinking.

Which brings up another point: the American owners are by far lazier than their counterparts in the UK. I've seen far many more examples of pure laziness, incompetence, or ignorance in the first few episodes of the US series than I ever saw in all four seasons of the UK run! It seems, in Britain, the owners genuinely wanted to fix the problem and get their restaurants back to something more respectable. But the attitude in the United States seems to be something along the lines of, "who are you, and how dare you tell me how to run my restaurant." Which is again puzzling because it's not like Ramsay appeared out of thin air: they *asked* for his help!

It was also rare for someone in the UK to argue with Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay is one of the best chefs on the planet, and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who disagreed with that position. With that being said, if he showed up one day, I'd be taking everything that comes out of his mouth as gospel and running with it. You'd get no argument from me. There were still territorial conflicts on the UK show, of course, but they seem to be far more frequent on the American version. For example, Ramsay cooked up a new dish and presented it to the owners for taste testing. Ramsay then offered it to the restaurant's chef, who then refused to taste it at all. Talk about supreme insults. But if I were that chef, I'd be taking that opportunity to learn from the best culinary mind in the world. Now, he just looks like an idiot.

I just got back home from a great thanksgiving dinner, a night of playing hearts and working on amateur radio equipment. What more could I ask for out of life?

After I got back, I put the headphones on and realized that my usual musical choices are beginning to sound a little old and stale. This happens every now and then, every year or two. Thus, I'm on the hunt for some new music, and this time I've got a few specifics about what type of music I'm looking for. I've always been a fan of music with a strong melody and bassline, so 80's music fit that bill rather nicely. Music with lots of power behind it (and not just in volume, but in the raw strength of the music itself) and great-sounding chord progression is a plus, as well.

I did some searching around and came up with two groups that I've never listened to before: Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Both groups have a long history going back to the mid 1970's, and were pioneers of various forms of electronic music. I was surprisingly disappointed with Kraftwerk; their music sounded very mechanical and robotic, and there wasn't much emotion or power in the music. This might be because I listened to an album from 1975, but it was still disappointing. Yellow Magic Orchestra had more of what I was looking for: strong beats, powerful music, and melody. I didn't hear anything that I'd consider noteworthy, but it was clear that I was getting closer to what I was seeking.

So, I've decided to compile a list of some noteworthy music in the hopes that some of you readers out there are able to recommend something new based on my musical preferences. Maybe you'll find something new and exciting in this list. Who knows.

• Starshine (Purple Motion) - One of my favourite musical pieces of all time. I've been listening to this since 1994 and still love every moment of it. Purple Motion recently released a remix of this tune on his new album "Musicdisk", and it sounds great. Heavily synthesized, complex piece with a powerful melody and strong beat. The percussion and heavy strings in this piece take the place of a traditional bass guitar. A classic example of how demoscene music fits the bill rather nicely.
• Explosion (Project A-Ko) - This wacky anime sure had a lot of great sounding music. Considering the fact that the anime was produced in the 80's, this shouldn't be a big surprise. This particular tune featured a synthesized lead that gives way to a great guitar solo, and then to a piano. Very strong bass guitar keeping the beat, and lots of power all around. By the way, if anyone can figure out who composed the music from Project A-Ko, let me know.
• Chains of Love (Erasure) - Straight from the 1980's, this popular song has some great synthesized chords that mix wonderfully with the strong bass guitar. For a piece of pop music, this sounds rather pleasing to the ear. Listen to the song, in particular around 2:39 when Andy Bell sings, "making plans together" and notice how the bass guitar and background synth mesh together perfectly.
• Relax (Frankie Goes to Hollywood) - Another popular piece of 80's music, almost everyone knows this one. The bass here is very, very strong and sets the beat very forcefully. The melody and chord progression isn't as important here, but the power behind the song sure is.
• Da Funk (Daft Punk) - My first experience with this tune was when I stepped off of the West Coast Express in Maple Ridge to meet Shaun. Just as I stepped off of the train, he pulled up to the main entrance to the station and pushed the passenger side door open. The heavy beat of Da Funk rang out, and the perfectness of it made me wonder if I was in a scene fresh out of The Matrix or something. I'll go to my grave with that memory, I swear it. But it just goes to show my attraction to music with a heavy bass and percussion working together to create an awesome piece of music.
• Over The Line (The Crystal Method) - Strong use of synthesized instruments that create a very electronic feel to the music. The heavy beat doesn't detract from the piece feeling 'smooth' and progressing with its own set of chords. Instead of relying on repetition, this piece is actually quite dynamic.
• Bridge to the Universe (Bjorn Lynne) - Very strong synthesized melody that follows the same type of 'strong lead' that Starshine does. Not a big surprise for a piece of demoscene music. The song feels strong, but isn't as loud as a great many other selections on this list. Very complex-sounding with some great guitar work as well.
• The River of Dreams (Astal) - A nice symphonic rock type piece from Astal for the Sega Saturn. What makes this piece stand out from the others is the pure power behind it. Very nice and pleasant chord progression. I fell in love with this tune after hearing it for the first time over a dozen years ago. Too bad the soundtrack for this game seems to be impossible to find. I don't know the name of the composer, so if anyone knows it, do pass it on.

There are, of course, tons of other music that I enjoy listening to. Pink Floyd doesn't really fit into any of the categories above, and rightfully so, but I still enjoy it thoroughly. There is also a ton of video game music that would match my criteria rather well (a few pieces from the Battle Arena Toshinden series comes to mind,) but I'm looking for more mainstream artists in this case.

One last piece of music that deserves an honourable mention is "Black Helikopters" from a group that was previously on mp3.com as "Groove Lab." As far as I can tell, they only ever created three songs: Black Helikopters, Black Helikopters Bible Black Mix, and Black Helikopters Kissing Teeth Mix. They took these three songs (which are all variations on the same theme, but three very different pieces of music) and released them on an album called "Sightings: Black Helikopter." Unfortunately, they seem to have disappeared off of the net.

My favourite is the Bible Black mix, which is a slow, smooth-sounding piece of music that relies heavily on its ability to set the tone and tell a story. You can just imagine this guy sitting in an interrogation room as he nervously tells his story:

"So I broke into an Area 51 secure installation after monitoring months of.... black helicopter activity in the area.
Through a window I entered a chamber, where I witnessed several aliens of different.. species.. utilizing various types of.... equipment.
One of the aliens noticed me, and began to approach.
He.. stopped suddenly and picked up a case.. uh.. which I was sure contained equipment he would use to perform tests on me.
He reached into the case... and he pulled out.... an electric bass!
No shit. Fender Jazz, strapped it on, not even plugged in, and the cat started to play.
Freakin' alien, man, playing bass. Blew me away.
Black helicopters are now watching me. Black helicopters. In whisper mode. Watching me."

Then the strong beat begins and the song continues to play smoothly until the very end. I'm surprised that a person (or group of people) so talented would vanish off of the net without a trace. Doing a search only yields the odd DJ or two that have used the piece in a playlist. I've included the full lyrics here in hopes that someone, somewhere has more information about who composed this piece of music and what they're doing now.

~I can still recall our last summer
I still see it all
Walks along the sand,
laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain.~

Ten years ago, I never in my wildest dreams would've believed that I could listen to the great variety of video game music and remixes of video game music as readily as I can today. This is great, because there are some real classics out there, from the Final Fantasy series, from Lennus, from Lufia, Kings Quest VI, the list goes on. You name any great video game, and it's virtually guaranteed that a key component of what made it great was the music.

So it goes without saying that these great pieces of music are now being remixed in a million different ways. Rock versions, symphonic versions, ambient, trance, industrial, whatever. For someone like myself, where over 50% of my music is comprised of video game music and their respective remixes, it's simply heaven.

Studios that put out great remix albums like Project Majestic Mix and Squaredance simply do an awesome job of what they do best. One Up Studios had a live performance at Penny Arcade Expo this year, and after watching videos of it, I can assure you that I'm completely envious. Of course, I tried to make myself feel better by purchasing their album, "The Very Best of Sega." At ten bucks, it includes some great pieces, including excellent Phantasy Star remixes.

Thomas pointed me to an album that was just released by the famous video game remix site "OverClocked Remix", titled "Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream." A Final Fantasy VII remix? Sign me up, baby! The website is right here:

http://ff7.ocremix.org/

Unfortunately, I've noticed a disturbing trend in video game remixes. It seems that these artists have forgotten that what makes video game music great is the melody. That catchy little tune that gets stuck in your head. It's the backbone of virtually any piece of video game music, and it should go without saying that it should be in virtually every remix of a video game music piece as well.

If you get a chance to download the Final Fantasy VII album above, and I wholeheartedly recommend that you do so, take the time to compare a few pieces to their originals. We should all be familiar with Final Fantasy VII stock music by now, so let's go on a little tour:

CD 4, Track 9: Black Wing Metamorphosis (Remix of "One Winged Angel"): This piece of music is an excellent example of what a remix is all about. The tune starts by playing something similar to what "One Winged Angel" would sound like on an Atari 2600, and then slowly builds up with a symphonic style. Out of nowhere, you're blasted into a great symphonic rock rendition of the piece that rivals Virt's "Dancing Mad Once Again" in terms of quality. It's that awesome. It even has the chanting and everything. Veni, veni, venias, ne me mori facias. Hell yeah.

CD 4, Track 1: Sleep, My Sephy (Remix of "Judgment Day"): That's right, this is a remix of the final dungeon music. But, uh, is it really? I listened carefully to this piece several times over and could make out no trace of the original melody in this remix. Don't get me wrong, the tune is quite good on its own merits, but it has nothing to do with the original that it is supposedly a remix of. It's like someone composed a totally new song and said, "oh, damn, we're missing a piece on the last disc of that Final Fantasy album, so.. uh.. let's put this in and call it a remix of that triumphant-sounding last dungeon music, because you know, nobody's going to notice now that it's all acoustic guitars."

Another piece of music that really sticks out on this compilation is CD 1, Track 2: Every Story Begins With a Name (Remix of "Opening - Bombing Mission".) It's actually quite nicely modernized and has a lot of power behind it. It screams "*this* is what Final Fantasy VII was all about," it gets you excited for the rest of the album and the melody is still gloriously intact. Well done. That is, until you get into the "Bombing Mission" part and it loses focus. Alas.

We know that these remix artists are talented, but there's no need to stretch a melody out so far that you can't recognize it anymore. If you want to do that, just release an album called "My Best Pieces of Trance Music, Ever" and I'll respect you for that. But please don't try to call it Final Fantasy when it's really not.

Last, but not least, is a piece of music (on OC Remix, but not a part of this album) called "Deserted Industry", by Beatdrop, an industrial remix of "Wild West" from Final Fantasy VI. Most of us know it as "The Veldt Theme." It's probably not for the faint of heart, because it's quite a loud industrial piece, but it does have a lot of power behind it. Most importantly, though, the melody is wonderfully intact, and it sounds great. (Of course, it sounds great to my ears, but to someone else's it may not. Never the less, you can't deny the raw power that's been infused into the melody on this one.)

That's it, music critique mode off, and I'm going to bed.

Due to my unique situation here in Grande Cache, that is, living without an oven or a stove, I've been eating a sickening amount of frozen and pre-made foods. A microwave is currently my only cooking tool, and that's pathetic by any standard. Needless to say, I've become quite sick of the rotating selection of frozen TV dinners, pre-packaged salads, and canned goods.

It wouldn't be half bad if the restaurants in town were any good, but unfortunately, they aren't. None of them serve up grade A food like what can be found on practically every street corner in Vancouver. Some of them are downright awful. So, I present to you "Cyan's completely biased and unfair survey of restaurants in Grande Cache."

Vegas Pizza - Now known as "Vegas Bar and Grill", this restaurant used to be the crown jewel of restaurant eating in Grande Cache. Now it caters to the lowest common denominator: the oil rig worker. Instead of walking in to a welcoming family restaurant full of great food and greater gossip, you now get the staredown from dozens of rig workers working on their third pint of beer. Now the wings are overcooked, the pasta is mushy, and the hamburger buns are soggy. The food has gone from excellent to absolutely disgusting. D-

Grande Cache Pizza - Not a bad greasy spoon sort of restaurant. This is where all the locals go now that Vegas has taken a dive. They serve up hamburgers that aren't half bad, but the pizza is second rate compared to what you can get in Vancouver. The food is a bit sloppy and greasy, but all in all it isn't a bad place. As a bonus, the owner has just purchased the old Dairy Princess across the street, so we can look forward to more greasy spoon food in Grande Cache. C

Grande Cache Hotel - Really three establishments in one: a bar, a lounge, and a family restaurant. They have the best breakfast in town, hands down, and the best food in town. The hot wings are a pretty lousy attempt, but the BBQ wings are pretty good (even if you end up eating more sauce than chicken.) The lounge tries to pass itself off as being a "steak and ale" sort of place, but for a steak house in Alberta, the steaks are pretty bland. B

Dragon Palace - The token Chinese restaurant in town. By Chinese, I really mean "North American Chinese" and not the dim sum sort of Chinese food you might've come to expect in Vancouver. But, they do this kind of Chinese food reasonably well. You get looked at strangely if you ask for chopsticks, though. Stay away from the smorgasbord. It looks like it should be on a Foodsafe poster for what happens when food gets left out for too long. C

Milo's Greek Restaurant - By Greek restaurant, they must mean, "we use olives in some of our dishes, some of the time." I ordered a BBQ Chicken entree and was served a tough, chewy piece of chicken breast that looked like it had been made the day before and then re-heated in the microwave. To add insult to injury, the BBQ sauce looks like someone squeezed off a line of Kraft BBQ Sauce on top and called it done. Then, I was charged fifteen bucks for the entree alone! For those of you in Vancouver, run over to Stepho's and enjoy yourself while you can. The Greek outlook is pretty miserable out here. D

Noelle's Cafe - Not really a restaurant in its own right, but they serve up a pretty tasty Egg McMuffin sort of sandwich for breakfast. Their lunch sandwiches (BLT, clubhouse, etc) aren't half bad, either. But everyone likes to stand at the till and chat, which can make the wait a real pain. The owner also needs to change the cheese he uses, it likes to curl and condense quickly even after being out for only a few minutes. C

Subway - The only fast food joint in town. This is disappointing considering that I had a Subway by my store in Burnaby, so I am thoroughly done with them. Besides, all the high school kids come during lunch (and I do mean all of them.) You'd think they'd at least change their menu after a couple of years, and it looks like they're making a token effort with that Montreal smoked meat sandwich. But ten bucks for the sandwich alone?! Give me a break, and people bitch that Quizno's is too expensive? C

Greenhouse Cafe - This is a little cafe in the mall that serves up Chinese food along with the usual greasy North American fare. The only place in Grande Cache to get a hot dog. The cafe looks like it's stuck in the 70's, and that's no surprise considering the whole mall looks like it's stuck in the 70's. It has that sort of 'bingo hall' or 'run down casino' cafeteria look to it. I haven't eaten there yet, but as soon as I do, I'll be sure to let you guys know.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to get my wok and rice cooker back. I could actually prepare fresh meat and vegetables! It would be like actually cooking at home again!

Besides, after watching episode after episode of "The F Word", "Hell's Kitchen", and "Kitchen Nightmares", I had been tantalized by delicious looking food and fresh ingredients for months. As Gordon Ramsay was so fond of saying on the air, "throw that frozen shit away."

Without further ado, I present to you Sticky Lemon Chicken on Rice. It's based on Gordon Ramsay's recipe, "Sticky Lemon Chicken with Champ", but I had nothing available with which to cook champ, a mashed potato dish. So, I substituted in rice for the champ, which I felt was a suitable replacement.

• 1. Prepare rice in rice cooker by adding two cups of water to one cup of rice.
• 2. Cut a raw chicken breast into stir-fry strips and season generously with sea salt and ground black pepper.
• 3. Heat 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in the wok.
• 4. Cut a whole head of garlic in half horizontally. Once the oil is hot enough, put both halves into the wok face down.
• 5. Add the raw chicken in to the wok and season generously with thyme. Brown the chicken.
• 6. Add a splash of sherry cooking wine into the wok and reduce by half.
• 7. Drizzle 3 tablespoons of honey and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce into the wok and shake to mix.
• 8. Add a splash of hot water into the wok along with a whole lemon sliced into thin slices.
• 9. Reduce until syrupy, approximately ten to fifteen minutes.
• 10. Serve rice on a plate, with chicken on top. Sprinkle some freshly chopped parsley over the chicken.

Sticky Lemon Chicken on Rice, Done.

One of the toughest questions I've had to answer at a job interview is, "Would you consider yourself to be a natural leader, or a good follower?" To this day, I'm not quite sure which one I am.

To be sure, there's no shame in being a follower. After all, the world only has room for so many leaders, and leaders can only function when they have a mass of good followers behind them. Followers who do their tasks well, have respect for their leader, and are driven. The power behind good leadership is in solidarity; when you have a group of people behind you, who stand with you through anything, that's a force to be reckoned with. Being a good follower is at least as important, if not more important than being a good leader.

It's unfortunate that in this day and age we're all taught that leadership is where it's at. Climb the corporate ladder, establish yourself apart from the crowd, make a name for yourself. We're taught that not accomplishing something for yourself in this fashion makes yourself a lesser part of society. The side-effect to this is that we have too many people striving for the top, and not enough people being supportive of those who are leading. In the worst case scenario, you end up with situations like RMH, where so many people who are clearly not leadership material are attempting to crawl their way to the top by putting down anyone they can to get there. When that happens, the solidarity is gone, and the power behind good fellowship is lost.

Loyalty is cheap these days. A person's loyalty can swing from one direction to another in a matter of minutes. People seem to have short memories for actions done in the past. Someone who was very loyal and a very good follower for the past several years is likely to be forgotten. However, it's also likely that situations like that are simply a case of bad leadership. If that's true, then we've got a *lot* of bad leaders in today's society.

A good leader is someone who is supportive and encourages the best from his followers. He draws out the talents from each one of his followers and maximizes that potential to get the best work possible done. A good leader will delegate responsibility to his followers and then let them be. He doesn't meddle with the progress, he doesn't interfere. But he does give critical opinion of the end result. This is where the importance of rewards comes into play. A well compensated and rewarded follower is ultimately a happy one. It sort of becomes the inverse of a vicious cycle; a cycle where the happiness of the follower results in better work, which results in more rewards, and hence a happier experience for the follower.

I think one of the best leaders in this world is without a doubt Gordon Ramsay. Known for his frequent swearing and fits of anger on camera, you wouldn't suspect someone like Ramsay to be a great leader. You'd think he'd be better known for leading with fear and an iron fist. But, if you watch him on camera, after a while it becomes clear that he simply tries to draw the best out of people. He doesn't treat everyone the same, he tailors his actions specifically for the person he's dealing with. Then, when things go right, the praise received by Ramsay's followers is genuinely appreciated.

The great thing about Gordon Ramsay is that he simply does not tolerate laziness. It's a shame that being too 'lazy' seems to be an acceptable excuse for the twenty-first century, but here we are. Ramsay doesn't think that's acceptable, and neither do I.