Update the Great

Virtual Jobs

My memory will work against me. I learnt many principles and their definitions throughout University. While I have integrated most of the principles (I hope) and can apply them as necessary, my ability to associate specific terms with appropriate definitions is questionable. I just had a phone interview with a job that asked me to explain a few concepts that I remember learning but couldn't recall what they refer to. In hindsight, I did know a couple, and I could properly define one of them now and could have defined the other then if I had a few moments to compose myself. A couple other ones I have had to look-up again. They concerned databases, and the principles that underly them are intuitive to me. I need to keep up better on my terminology, but I do not know how. Perhaps read more technical books? I suppose I should have my father mail me more of my textbooks :)

Virtual Play

I started work on a Java project called Duplicity for now. It's proving very fun, but it would be simpler if I could do something like this:

class CatOwner {
  ...
  public ArrayList getPets() {
    ArrayList cats = this.getCats();
    return cats;
  }
}
class Cat extends Animal {
  ...
}

However, I cannot convert a collection with a type into a similar collection of its supertype. It seems as though I logically should. Any Cat is also an animal, so why can an ArrayList of Cats not be known as an ArrayList of Animals. I am sure there is a good reason and I'm bound to find it eventually, but right now it's a nuisance.

Physical Location

I have migrated to Vancouver! My girlfriend and I departed Ontario on the 23rd via Greyhound and arrived in BC on the morning of the 26th. It was a spectacular drive. In summary, Winnipeg is sexy, Medicine Hat is funky, and Canmore is cool. Have you heard of the Legend of White River? If you're ever there and that awkward boy dances desperately before you, it's his method of speech and sustenance. Aid him! Most of my photos are spectacularly blurred or spotted (through the dirty Greyhound windows), but I intend on uploading a large amount to Picasa Web once I can afford a decent account.

We spent the first little while in Victoria among my sisters and my nephews. They are nearly 10 or 7 months old now (born 3 months early, so I say 7, going from when they should have come out). I don't get along very well with the younger of my two sisters, and her dog less, so it might be a good thing that I am aiming to gain employment in Vancouver. We are there now, borrowing my girlfriend's uncle's apartment for the month of May. It's situated downtown and on the 19th story. I am spoiled.

We've been trying to walk most places, including from Granville Island to Stanley Park. It's a blast. The weather has been fair and sometimes welcoming. The shops are all very neat. One bad thing that I'll discuss more upon below are the food prices, though.

Fan club

I am pretending I have a fan club. An acquaintance and a friend have moved to Vancouver, and another friend from Ontario has gone to BC to Vancouver Island, hoping to work on an organic farm. It's nice knowing other humans in the area.

I wonder, if I ever manage to accomplish all the things I hope to, whether I really will have a fan club, in the sense that the GNOME developers have fans like me. That aloof respect and admiration. Shock and confusion when someone criticises them. Hmm. ^_^

The Cost of Eating

Food prices here seem on average to be 25-50% greater than in Ontario. A 700g brick of cheese averages out at around $13 in most of the larger stores I've been into, while in Ontario I found it pricey at $9. Milk is sometimes cheaper, but we have a hard time finding 4L of organic milk. We're going to soy this week. The cheapest source of our vitals has proven to be Chinatown, and definitely not Granville Island. However, upon our wandering walks, we discovered a number of smaller shops that had the odd item at much better prices. We thought through most of the day that we had triumphed with Strawberries, 2 for $4! But before the day's end, we found 3 for $5.

In consequence, we are now cataloguing prices we encounter and tabulating them in a spreadsheet. We're doing it via Google Docs, and we if we can find any other suckers^wfriends to contribute, we'll share it with them as well. I feel almost certain that such a website must exist for Canadians (I know of one for the US) but I cannot find it yet. Hmm.