maverick's truth

It hits you once you have your first midterm (or test/quiz of value >= 20%). The semester is a quarter over, January '05 is history, and time is, once again, flying.

Fortunately, my first "midterm" (technically, it's a 20% quiz, but since we don't have a real midterm, and only 3 of these quizzes, it's as close as I get) was fine. I was a bit worried, since that was the computer science class that I didn't actually have all the prereq knowledge for... but I think it actually went alright. I was the first person done (as per usual) which is usually a good sign.

In other news, job interview tomorrow (yay! finally! and for a job that was one of the tops on my list!) at 10.30 am. I'm trying to be confident but not overly so... I still have to get the job. Something about not counting one's chickens before they are hatched? But it would be a very, very nice job, assuming it would all work out. Here's hoping.

Other than that, not much to report. School, home, homework, eat, sleep, etc. makes up the bulk of my days. Speaking of homework, eat, sleep, I'm thinking that all sounds like a wonderful idea. So homework, eat, sleep it is.

NHL's new offer shows signs of compromise

The Canadian Press is reporting the NHL's labour talks resumed at 4:30 p.m. ET at an undisclosed location in New York.

Sportsnet.ca -- With hopes of salvaging a season dwindling away, the NHL is showing signs of compromise. Sources told Sportsnet that a luxury tax will be included in a proposal the league intends to present to the NHL Players' Association no later than Friday.

While the new offer still contains some form of salary cap, sources told Sportsnet hockey analyst John Davidson the league is being more flexible by introducing the tax to a soft and hard cap system.

Sources said the proposal will include floor and ceiling numbers that will serve as a boundary for NHL teams to spend within -- the top side being the hard cap. A soft cap would be set somewhere in between the two and teams willing to go above that number (without exceeding the the hard cap) would have to pay a tax.

What appears to be a starting point for a new direction of negotiations, the offer should provide the NHL and its players' association with a system they can use to build towards a workable solution. ...

Not many updates recently, but that's more because there's no news to report. All that's "news-worthy", I guess is that I'm still looking for a job (thus the title). I've applied for a couple more web design positions, but there's not a whole lot of jobs that I'm finding. Not a big deal right now, but as each day goes by, I'd really like to be finding something!

Update on the courses: Latin seems to be going alright -- better than it was. It's a different style of teaching, which means a different style of learning, but I think it'll be alright. A whole lot of memorizing though. Religious Studies is still pretty good... I should finally have my textbook by the end of this week. I managed to get it half-price by getting it through Chapters as opposed to the campus bookstore. And finally computer science... *sigh*. So I'm working on this assignment, and I think I've got pretty well figured out how to do the stuff that we didn't learn when I did the prerequisite equivalent. Boatloads of examples, etc. all work out just fine. But when it comes to the assignment question, it just doesn't make any sense. In fact, I'm just about convinced (like 98.75%) that there must be a mistake with the question because I know that my comprehension of this stuff isn't that bad. I kicked at this question for several hours over the weekend to no avail. I let J look it over, and she came to the same conclusion as I, so... where does that leave me? To go talk to my lab instructor tonight, and hope that he can either explain to me where I'm going wrong or that maybe I'm right and there's a flaw in the question. The thing is I'm not very impressed with this lab instructor (read: not at all impressed), but it's really all I've got to go on. So we'll see.

Oh, and still with computer science, the prof apparently ordered the wrong textbook, so assuming the bookstore is still doing returns, I should be able to get ~$100 back. He said not to bother getting the proper one, since the bookstore won't be ordering it in. We'll see.

Datz it for now... hopefully this lab tonight makes this assignment make more sense. That would definately be a bonus.

cbc.ca - Trevor Linden and Vincent Damphousse, two key members of the NHLPA executive committee, all but pronounced the NHL season dead on Friday.

Speaking at a news conference, Linden, president of the NHLPA, stopped just short of declaring that the 2004-05 NHL campaign is over, but did say the ball is in NHL commissioner Gary Bettman's court in terms of ending the current lockout.

"It's crystal clear what they want. It's all or nothing, and that's unfortunate," Linden said. "Gary will decide when to cancel the season.

"This is a critical point. If it goes past this, it could go on for a year from now. It's Gary's lockout and we can only do so much."

Damphousse was much more blunt in his pronouncement.

"I think the season's done. All the guys that are waiting to see what's going to happen before going to in Europe should go over there and play," Damphousse told CBC News on Friday.

"Same for next year. I don't see how this can be resolved by next September. The [NHL's] strategy is to break the will of the union and impose a salary cap and I don't think that's going to work."

Detroit Red Wings senior vice president Jimmy Devellano is on the other side of the labour dispute than Linden and Damphousse, but he agrees there won't be hockey played in 2005.

"The season's done," Devellano told the Detroit Free Press. "There's no chance that the right deal can remotely be done in the next little while. There's too much work to be done. There's too many I's to dot and T's to cross. You are not going to get this collective bargaining agreement done in two days, three days, one week or two weeks. It's over."

The remarks by Linden and Damphousse come one day after representatives for the NHL's owners and players engaged in 4 1/2 hours of labour talks in Toronto. ...

Sportsnet.ca -- The National Hockey League and the NHLPA are meeting this afternoon in Toronto and sources tell Sportsnet the players associations' executive committee has been brought in to add weight to the process.

With the exception of Daniel Alfredsson and Arturs Irbe, the rest of the executive team has flown in. Bill Guerin, Bob Boughner, Trent Klatt, and Vincent Damphousse have gathered in Toronto, but are not participating in the meeting.

Sources say the executives will be briefed by NHLPA President Trevor Linden immediately following the meeting and will then determine what direction needs to be taken from that point on.

In the event this marathon stalemate might be about to end, Sportsnet has learned at least one team is urging its players to be ready for training camp as early as next week.

Sources tell Sportsnet the Phoenix Coyotes coaching staff has informed its players they need to be on standby, prepared to practice within the next seven days.

While it remains clear there is a great deal of work to be done before either side emerges from today's meeting with a resolution, an incredible sense of urgency continues to grow.

The biggest hurdle the NHL will face is scrambling to reconstruct the league and all of the off-ice logistics that go along with that. Through a process that includes all non-economic matters, it's believed the earliest a season could start is February 10.

Job hunting is generally not all that great for the ego, particularly when you don't hear back from people on positions that you thought you were perfectly qualified for.

Sometimes, you just have to be patient.

Today, I got an email from one of the positions I applied for -- the classroom support position, which is a tech position, and is relatively (ie. quite good for a student!) well paying. They're still considering me for the position, and just want to clarify that, while I'm a student, I'd be able to work when they'd need me. So... I'll have to respond to that, that's for sure!

"More news as it happens"

Q. How were your classes today?
A. Latin was fine.
Q. And what about your computer science?
A. Latin was fine.

There is a problem with taking a prerequisite course at one institution and the follow-up course at another. They're almost never the same. Now, it's not a problem when you do all the material or more in the prereq that would have been done at the other institution. The problem arises when your background knowledge comprises only about 75% of that which you are expected to have.

Guess what situation I'm in? That's right... having to learn about a month's worth of "stuff" in a couple of weeks, in time to do the first assignment and quiz. Oh, and I have to keep up with all the other material we're doing on top of this. I managed to borrow a textbook -- albeit not the one I used, nor the one that the prereq course uses -- so I guess it's time to start hitting the books. Maybe literally. If you see me with a dent in my forehead, that's why. Either that or because I fell asleep on top of my stack of books.

Hm... I must be on a roll or something. Now, no heart attacks when you see this one. Yes, that is a flower. Yes, it is pink. Yes, I did create it. No, I'm not sick. I just like the look of it!

I'm somewhat of an aspiring web designer. With no clients at the moment. So to amuse myself, I create mockups of webpages. I've got four to show off currently; 3 of which I quite like and 1 of which I don't. All of them are available for your perusal at my photobucket account. Direct links also available via the thumbnails below.



For stuff that I've actually built, check out my website: http://www.groundupweb.ca

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears ... ahem... eyes.

I've been meaning to set this up for a while. You know, since I'm up here and you're down there... or over there... or to the other side... or maybe you're floating above me in the sky, having mastered human flight... well wherever you are, I know that at least some of you like to keep track of me, my goings on and non-goings-on. The most common and frequent are, of course, the non-goings-on.

Let's see. Classes are officially one week done, and yet, it's still too early for me to be able to tell how they're going to go. A quick run down would look something like as follows:

Latin II: As I mentioned at the end of last semester, there is a reason that the Romans aren't around anymore, and I firmly believe that it has more to do with the fact that they spoke Latin and less to do with any other more (so-called) historical factors. And whoever created the third declension ought to be shot, maimed, tortured... either that or make them recite the appropriate forms, genders and meanings for all of the third declension nouns and adjectives! That would be sufficient torture for anyone. But I digress... as I was attempting to say, I'm not quite sure about this class yet. The instructor seems to be a masters student with "naught but a BA to his name". And of course, when it comes to teaching experience, his experience seems a bit lacking. That and it's a foreign language, which always seems a tad foreign. Particularly when it's also known as a "dead" language. (See Roman joke above)

Digital Systems: One day I thought this would be a breeze. The next day I didn't think so; or at least, not nearly as much as I had previously. I will have a better feel for this as of the end of this week, when we should have finished reviewing pertinent topics from the courses I took at "the other school" As of this moment, I'm not sure if we covered all of the prerequisite knowledge or not, though I am fairly confident that we did. More than anything, I'm anxious to get onto the real deal.

History of Christianity (200-800): Before classes started, I really wasn't feeling all that confident about my decision to do a degree in (what amounts to) Religious Studies. After all, there's not a whole lot of related work you can do with just a BA, and for what I'm interested in, not only do I have to finish this degree, but I have to go on and get an MA or PhD, as near as I can tell. Add to this that I've already finished one degree in a subject area that I'm not all that keen on, and you can see where the uncertainty would begin to set in. However, I am happy to report that at this particular moment in history, I'm feeling pretty good about this one. Granted, I've only had one actual lecture in this class, but it sounds and feels "right". And of course, I've enjoyed the previous courses I've had in related areas. The instructor for this one seems really very good, and bonus! she's the undergraduate advisor, so someone I should probably get to know fairly well.

A run down of the truly important stuff in all of this: I only have one final exam, one true midterm, a series of quizzes (I prefer to call them "term tests"), and papers! of course. Two minor papers (about 1500 words each, if memory serves me correctly), a term paper and three assignments. That's spread amongst three courses. And the sad thing is that when I say those are the "only" things I have, it actually seems like quite a light load! But you might need to remind me of that when crunch time hits. Oh, and have I mentioned that I still am looking for an need a job?

Well, that's all the school related updates I have. Other than that, there's not really much to report. My goal is to be a somewhat decent blogger, posting updates as I have them. Which of course precludes that I have updates to post. Which means that I need to have events happen to blog about. Which means that I need a life. Which means... well... I'll let you fill in that blank.