All aboard!

All aboard!
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

We took a guided tour of the S/V Concordia, a school-on-a-ship for 11th and 12th graders (only 48 are accepted each year, and there are seven teachers on board, so the student-to-teacher ratio is excellent). The ship sails to over 43 destinations over a 10-month school year, and the students learn about much more than just academics (it's a university prep program) and sailing on a modern tall ship (they have to work as part of the crew). The tuition is 27,500 Euros, or about $100 per day. All things considered, this is a relative bargain. More info here.

Road Trip 2006

Pilot One
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

Every year around late August, we go to Vancouver to visit Dominic, Caroline's Dad. Normally, we fly (WestJet), but this year we decided to try driving instead, with frequent stops along the way to enjoy the scenery. On our first day, we got to Salmon Arm and decided to stay overnight. The Holiday Inn was very nice and comfortable -- really a hotel more than a motel. We got there around 5:30 PM local time, and the parking lot was still pretty empty. Caroline and CJ wasted no time checking out the pool and the water slide. Then it was back to our room for a quick shower. By the time we got back from supper (at Joey's Only, a few kilometres down the road), the parking lot was a lot fuller. I hooked up our Airport Express to the room's Ethernet jack, and presto -- instant secure WiFi! Sweet!

Wow. Just wow.

Incomparable Ambiance
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

Once a year, Caroline and I make a pilgrimage to River Café for our wedding anniversary dinner. Starting last year, we decided the best way to dine here is to try the current tasting menu, with wine pairings chosen by the cellar manager or sommelier. We did the same thing this year, and we were not disappointed! For details, click on the photo to go to the Flickr photoset.

Ragamuffin

I guess it was only a matter of time before someone used the free Internet access at the Apple Stores to run their own, um, business. Imagine writing a 250-page book for several hours each day, over several months, while standing in high heels in front of an iMac computer on display, until closing time. A petite New York-based model, Isobella Jadeco, has done just that.

Voice Wreck-ognition

Is this an indication of the "updated" user experience we can expect from Windows Vista? I'm totally underwhelmed. Sheesh.

Someday, I'd like to go

Check out TEDTalks and watch some of the videos. There's something for almost every interest. As of this blog entry, I've watched the presentations of Majora Carter (moving and inspiring), David Pogue (entertaining and informative), and Larry Brilliant (totally riveting). In his video introduction, Chris Anderson boldly claims that TED is a foretaste of Heaven. That may be more than a bit presumptuous, but still, I can't help but wonder how marvelous it would be to meet some of the world's smartest, most interesting people, and listen to their ideas for making the world a better place. I can think of few other things I would enjoy more. So, stop reading this blog entry and check it out already. Feed your brain. You can thank me later.

Kidpreneur

Waiting
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

CJ finally got his wish — his very first business, a lemonade stand. No cutting corners, either — freshly-squeezed lemons, not commercially prepared lemon concentrate or powder. About two dozen people bought the product, and everyone liked it. He almost sold out — only two cups' worth was left in the cooler. Not bad for a first day, and he learned about the best spot from a transit worker who bought some and suggested he move his stand closer to the pedestrian bridge at Dalhousie LRT station. Location, location, location...

Bullseye!

Bullseye!
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

Strawberry picking season is upon us – our favourite u-pick place, ServiceBerry Farms, opened for the 2006 season on July 6. We set out on Monday July 10 and were there at 9:30 AM. By 11:30, Caroline had picked seven 4-litre pails with help from CJ. As you can see, the berries are sweet and ripe, and they're a deep, rich red all the way to the centre.

Thirsty?

Thirsty?
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

Summer means, among other things, cooling off at the beach or the pool. For CJ and a friend, it also means trying out some lollipops while chugging down fruit-flavoured water. My late Dad photographed me around this age, sitting in his office chair with my childhood friend Colleen, enjoying each other's company. I thought of doing the same for CJ. Ah, it brings back so many happy memories... of ice cream cones, lemonade, and carefree play during the summer holidays. Oh, to be six years old again...

Kuya's Birthday 2006

Just as we did last year, we gathered in the Pickering Room at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary to celebrate Kuya's 51st birthday. As usual, there was way more food than we could eat, including Filipino delicacies such as kare-kare and ensaymada.

I Want to Ride it Again

Caroline, CJ, and I visited Calaway Park at 5PM on Friday June 9th, 2006 — just before the weekend crowd. Because it was threatening to rain, many people stayed away and it almost felt as though we had the park to ourselves. Here's a short (~1.5 minute) video.

That Didn't Take Long at All

What do you do when, on your second day at a new job, just barely out of new hire training, three different well-meaning (?) colleagues, on three different occasions, warn you that you have to constantly watch your back and cover your ass by documenting everything in e-mail? That you have to become paranoid in order to survive the office minefield, because folks from outside your team are out to get you and trip you up? I would've dismissed it as just so much scaremongering, but I saw signs that set off alarm bells in my head.

The company had growing pains because of rapid expansion. Office space was an issue. Some teams (such as ours) were understaffed. I was told of turf wars — oldtimers vs. newcomers. This fostered a highly adversarial climate, yet senior management seemed unwilling to deal with it. Imagine working among people who act like your friends but will stab you in the back, given the opportunity. Some folks had to dig up e-mail from 10 years ago, to prove they weren't to blame for longstanding problems. All this never came up during my interviews. Note to self: next time, get the unvarnished truth about internal politics.

Boy, was I ever stressed. I haven't had stress knots in my neck in years. I had them on Day 2. I already have high blood pressure, I didn't need extra help getting there. My Dad had a stroke when I was 7, and died when I was 12. He was 52. Both maternal grandparents died of strokes. The odds are not looking good for me.

In the end, it was not any one thing, but a combination of many little things. My last name was misspelled three different ways by HR, office services, and IT. At my workstation, I didn't have my own phone number — it was someone else's. I had spotty access to databases I needed to do my job. Sometimes a web login would work, other times I'd get an error. The fellow who was responsible for correcting this did so only sullenly — I felt like an intruder, not a colleague. My cubicle had a sign saying "Working with idiots can kill you." Hmm. In an oil refinery, sure. But in an IT department?

After work that day, playing with my son at the park, I thought: what would I do to my health if I stayed in that toxic pressure cooker? Life's too short to put up with that kind of stress.

I did the only sane thing I could do under the circumstances: I quit.

I feel sorry for the (really nice) headhunter who worked so hard to land me this job. After all, it's not her fault that the organization didn't tell her about current internal issues. I also feel sorry for my former team lead, because she's a nice lady who puts up with the sort of daily aggravation I simply have no time for. I don't know why she does it.

I wish more senior executives would heed the lessons of Escape from Cubicle Nation. Life in the corporate world could be so much better.

Iron Chef in the Making?

_DSC4810.JPG
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

After attending a Praise and Worship evening at St. Bernard's Church in Parkdale, we were all hungry, so Caroline, CJ, and I drove over to Earl's in Dalhousie, because their kitchen stays open late. It was 10:30 P.M. by the time we got there. CJ was his usual charming self, and he managed to win over at least three of the female servers, who gushed over how adorable he was. Our own server was so charmed that she invited him to the kitchen to help make our dessert for the evening, a warm raspberry and apple cobbler with ice cream. CJ did very well, although scooping out the ice cream from the big tub required more strength than he could muster. Regardless, he still made quite a stellar impression on the kitchen staff. I have to get used to him being popular with the ladies. A chip off the old block? Nah.

Knife and Fork

Knife and Fork
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

There's been a recent controversial news story about Luc, a 7-year old Filipino boy in Quebec, who was chastised for eating his meals in the school lunchroom with a (gasp!) spoon and fork. The school principal, Norman Bergeron, professed ignorance of any culture where it's the custom to eat this way. There's been an avalanche of email and online commentary heaping scorn and contempt on him, and I daresay he deserves every bit of it. In fact, this whole incident illustrates why schools can be toxic to children. On the other hand, Luc's parents should probably have taught their son how to also eat with a knife and fork, as my 6-year old son CJ does (he can also eat with a spoon and fork, or with his bare hands, but we're working on chopsticks). As the saying goes, when in Rome...

The 'Second Life' Generation

Checking the result...
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

Today we made a huge decision. We registered officially as a home schooling family. Not yet sure exactly what it all means, but we're taking primary responsibility for CJ's education. Our decision was far from easy, and it involved a whole lot of reading and pondering. I'm inclined to believe that we're doing this primarily with CJ's best interests in mind, but we realize we're doing this for ourselves as a family, too. After all, we're part of a "community of learners."

I think we live in a society in which a rapid and accelerating change in social life and the economy and the kind of work that people do is transforming the need for knowledge... knowledge in the 21st century is going to be very different... a very substantial proportion of people are engaged in work, in jobs that did not exist when they were born and that number is increasing. So the model that says learn while you’re at school, while you’re young, the skills that you will apply during your lifetime is no longer tenable. The skills that you can learn when you’re at school will not be applicable. They will be obsolete by the time you get into the workplace and need them, except for one skill. The one really competitive skill is the skill of being able to learn. — Seymour Papert, MIT

CJ taught himself to read, the same way he learned to eat solid food, walk, speak, and use the toilet. Notice a pattern? I suspect that, with proper guidance, encouragement, and resources, he can probably teach himself just about anything. What's the alternative?

Many children struggle in schools... because the way they are being taught is the way is incompatible with the way they learn. — Peter Senge, MIT

One friend told me her son's teacher forbade students from using the Internet to research a topic, so they'd be forced to look it up in the library. Now, I have nothing against books (we have hundreds of them), but what's wrong with Wikipedia as a starting point? Why are schools trying to assert control over people who've discovered tools that empower them to direct their own learning? This strikes me as silly, wrongheaded, and counterproductive. It's like forcing someone to dig a hole with kitchen utensils when a shovel would be more efficient.

We don't have to make human beings smart. They are born smart. All we have to do is stop doing things that make them stupid. — John Holt

Google the combined terms "MIT learning children 21st century" and read the first five articles. If you can read only one, read this.

Now, given that picture of a rapid change of society, one would expect to see a rapid evolution of the institutions charged with preparing the young for it. We do not see this. We see a much slower rate of evolution of the school and that means we’re seeing a bigger and bigger gap between school and society. This gap is what I believe is responsible for the deterioration of performance in our schools and our educational systems. Because the children can see this; they can see that school is irrelevant. They feel that the pace of school and the mood of the school culture is out of sync with the society in which they live. And so it becomes harder and harder to get them to buy into the idea that school is satisfying their needs, that school is a bridge to the 21st century. — Seymour Papert, MIT

Another friend – who taught in schools for over 30 years – pointedly told us not to put CJ into a regular school. Why? Because, according to her, he'd only be bored to tears. It seems a lot of schools turn children off to learning by having them do pointless busywork. No child should have to endure such nonsense.

Jojo's Bistro Parisienne

Bon apetit
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

The other night Caroline and I went out for dinner at one of our favourite restaurants — Jojo's, which used to be on 17th Ave. S.W. right beside The Sultan's Tent, but is now along 33rd Ave. S.W. in Marda Loop. What a wonderful treat to enjoy a relaxing midweek supper with your spouse, a good bottle of wine, and superb French cuisine with a Moroccan touch! Our attentive and knowledgeable server, Nabila, is the owner's daughter. I had the Shrimp Spinach Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette, Spicy Scallop with Halibut Tagine, and Coffee Chocolate Mousse; Caroline had Mussel Saffron Soup, Rack of Lamb, and Amaretto Creme Brulee, accompanied by a very pleasant and affordable Louis Sipp Pinot Gris 2003. We had not visited Jojo's in some time, and it was well worth the trip. Highly recommended!

Driving in India – whoa!

Burning the Midnight Oil

A friend dropped off his iBook G4. It boots but won't get to the login screen. Disk Utility on my Tiger DVD won't repair it; neither can TechTool Deluxe, which reported surface errors and a damaged Volume Directory. Tried booting from the DiskWarrior 3.0 CD – kernel panic. Can't even mount it in Firewire target disk mode. The drive in my iBook G4 died in July 2005, when it was 19 months old. Fortunately, I had a recent backup on an external Firewire drive. My friend has only partial data backups on a network attached Maxtor OneTouch II. This could get ugly real fast. I hope I can backup at least his Home directory.

Update: the drive is toast. Drive Genius could not even see it in Firewire target disk mode. Oh well. Laptop drives are fragile critters. Backup, backup, backup! (My iBook is backed up nightly).

Blinking Green Light of Death

Well, it happened. I have a Nikon D70, purchased sometime Spring 2004, and it's exhibiting the symptoms well documented on the web — with a memory card in the camera and a fully-charged battery, the D70 remains inoperable. Pressing the rear Menu button briefly displays the menu in the rear LCD, then it goes blank. This is apparently a known defect in D70's manufactured before September 2004. I hope Nikon Canada will fix this free of charge, considering the problem seems so commonplace — Googling "dead D70" returns 377,000 hits. Sheesh.

For Prospective Employers and Colleagues

Lately I've been going through the interview process with headhunters and prospective hiring managers, and certain questions come up again and again. Here are the short answers, so next time I can just point my interviewers to this blog — kidding!

1. Q: What's your greatest weakness?
A: I can be too much of a perfectionist.

2. Q: What's your greatest strength?
A: My personal integrity. I say what I mean, and mean what I say.

3. Q: Describe a recent situation in which you committed an error.
A: While configuring a new IBM server, I forgot to enable RAID.

4. Q: What did you learn from this incident?
A: Next time, ask for help if you're not sure what to do.

5. Q: How do you handle difficult situations? Give an example.
A: Left my mug on a colleague's desk. She tore a strip off me in public.

6. Q: How did you respond?
A: I ignored her for days, until she broke down and apologized.

7. Q: Describe a work accomplishment you're especially proud of.
A: In over 2 years, a company I looked after didn't get a single virus.

8. Q: Where do you see yourself in five years?
A: Doing consulting work in some area of information technology.

9. Q: Why are you the best candidate for this role?
A: Am I? I listen well, and I get along fine with most people.

10. Q: Do you have any questions?
A: Why do interview questions tend to be the same?