Author: dale

I started as a technician, first setting up sound reinforcement and projection equipment at a convention facility, co-founded a DJ business and constructed our PA system from scrach, then got into electronics maintenance and repair at a community college. After obtaining a university degree in engineering, I designed integrated circuits for the first generation of 900 MHZ analog cellphones, the first generation of CA-code-phase tracking GPS receivers and digital pro-audio. I then progressed through a variety of leadership roles in product management, marketing, engineering product development and manufacturing, in fields such as industrial GPS-based positioning and navigation, pipeline integrity inspection and industrial process control.
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New Years Day 2011 Bike Ride Anyone?

My friend Ian Goodman wrote me asking if I was up for our third annual New Years Day bike ride. Am I?!? Of course! We’ll be out there tomorrow enjoying the crisp air and (hopefully) blinding Alberta winter sun.

Ian also sent some photo’s from the previous 2 rides. I’ve posted them here so you can see how stylish we look in case you care to join us.

New Years Day 2009. Ian is in the lead as we start from the Glenfield picnic area and head west:

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A little later in the day, the snow starts to drift softly down as we cross Bridge 6 (?).

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In comparison, New Years Day 2010 was a nice sunny day (but not as warm, judging from the number of layers I’ve got on).

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We’ll probably be starting out around 2:00pm again from Glenfield. See you there!

Dale

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Maestro Trial Screencast

I’ve been experimenting with creating Maestro screencasts using Ubuntu GNU Linux on my ThinkPad T23. Here’s a short demo showing the Project Management component. It should play without issue using FireFox, but you will need to install the Ogg Theora codec if you use Internet Explorer (FireFox comes with it built-in).  Sorry there’s no audio.

 

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Yaa Hoo! It’s the Calgary Stampede!

The gosling arrived as usual this spring. Parents are always the same, wary as ever, and hissing and honking when anyone gets too close. Do you have children?

The deer in Fish Creek Provincial Park are friendly as usual…

Yaa Hoo! it’s a parade.

My friend Ian spent his day shuttling visitors to the parade route in his big white limo.

Like many Oil & Gas companies, Baker Hughes’ hosts a Stampede Breakfast. This year I pulled my old road bike out of retirement for the trip downtown. Not far from home I met James, who was making his regular commute from Canyon Meadows to his downtown office. Chatting as we rode, we made the 1-1/2 hr ride in what seemed like only minutes.

Yee Haa! Some young ladies two-stepping at the corporate breakfast.

Horses are everywhere during Stampede week. Here are some tenderfoot’s, touring the downtown from horse-drawn carriages.

After breakfast, it was time to head to work. I rode out of downtown on the pedestrian bridge just visible center-right, down the Bow River pathway a piece, and then onto the Irrigation Canal pathway the rest of the way to work. Just another commute in paradise! (~1hr from downtown to Foothills Industrial).

Keep the rubber side down!

Dale

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Tech Podcasts

Bicycle commuting weather has returned to Calgary. I commuted to work twice last week on my classic Miyata 1000, and plan to beat that record this week. This morning was a little chilly, but at least I didn’t have to scrape the frozen rain off the jeep windshield.

Back in the saddle also means having 2hrs a day again for podcasts. I’m using my daughter’s old iPod nano (also a classic), and its 1G memory just balances my consumption with new content being published.

So, fanfare please, here’s my current list:

  • FLOSS Weekly (twit.tv/FLOSS), an offering of interviews with free and open source project leaders.
  • The Changelog (thechangelog.com), presents interviews with free and open source project leaders, but tends to be geekier than FLOSS Weekly (but not always).
  • BSD Talk (bsdtalk.blogspot.com), provides periodic interviews with those active in the BSD (UNIX-like operating system) community (e.g., FreeBSD).
  • Lullabot Drupal Podcast and Drupal Voices (lullabot.com). A great way to get into Drupal CMS development. The Drupal Podcast is a theme-based group effort from the Lullabot development team; Drupal Voices is short inteviews with non-Lullabot Drupal developers.
  • CBC Spark (radio3.cbc.ca) a weekly tech program for the lay person, each episode consisting of a half-dozen topics or interviews (full interviews also available for more depth).
  • The World: Technology (http://www.theworld.org/technology-podcast). An interesting collection of tech-related stores from around the world (albeit with a western bias).
  • CBC The World This Week. Nice wrap-up of the previous week’s global news to catch up on while bicycling to work Monday morning.
  • CBC Radio 3 Podcast (radio3.cbc.ca), a theme-based weekly program of Canadian independent music. I keep a couple annual roadtrip mixtape episodes on the iPod, as well the Sweatin’ to the Indies episode, for when I just want to pedal.
  • CBC Radio 3 Top 30 (radio3.cbc.ca), a weekly review of Canadian independent music. This is the first year I watched the Canadian Juno awards (Canada’s equivalent of the US Grammy’s) and recognised most of the songs and artists.