For the past year and a half, I've been working two jobs for the same company.  To oversimply a few things, my "official" job is tedious, unchallengnig, not very respected within the company, and worst of all, have to put up with multiple power-tripping shift managers.  By virtue of being a senior member of that team, I was probably best paid, but that wasn't saying much given how lowly regarded the function is within the company.

I was suckered into taking this job because the VP made some promises about the team's expansion that never materialized.  In hindsight I'm a bad fit for that group - think of it as using a Porsche to deliver pizzas kind of bad fit.  (I'll leave it up to you to figure out if I'm the Porsche or the pizza in this analogy)

My "unofficial" job, which is under a completely different division, is to develop pioneering software using our technologies, and quickly putting them into the market.  The projects for this very small team involve architecting solutions that have never been done before - pushing the envelop till the ass-end hangs off of the razor edge.  All this next-generation stuff is very high profile within the company, so my real job VP just turns a blind eye on me spending time on it.

I've been squeezing those two jobs into 9-hour days, with the pay, title, and recognition of the lesser one.  Since October, I've been trying to get transfered out of the "real" job to the pioneer team.  It's been a frustrating experience to say the least.  First the real job VP has to agree to my transfer, then the process got delayed by personnel changes at the executive level, then my family issues got in the way.  When I finally had a verbal agreement from the pioneer team, they couldn't get the CFO to open the vault for my salary (har har).

Well, I have some good news to share: after 8 months of (a lot of) begging and (very little) negotiating, I was finally officially promoted to be the Architect for the pioneer team.

With the transfer comes some perks too - a quieter cube in the corporation's posher building, and a new laptop.  I was hoping I'd make a nice entrance to the new role.  Well, HR neglected to tell me that the CFO (damn him!) still has the laptop purchase order buried in red tape, hence I'm stuck with my existing clunker desktop, AND, since we don't have a corporate mover, I have to move the computer and all of my own shit to the new office by myself.  The IT guy didn't even offer to move the desktop for me.  He must be in a union or something.

Yesterday was my first day in the new office, reporting to duty for a job I've been working on for a year.  You should see the entrance that I made - dragging a dolley loaded up with my shit.  Talk about ghetto style promotion.  The receptionist actually sent me to the freight elevator, saying she's never seen a vending machine supplies guy dresses so nicely.

It took me a couple of hours to settle in (the phone and network didn't work on first try, surprise surprise), and the people here are puzzled at my desktop.  I'm just glad that I am finally out of the sweatshop; I can finally say with pride that I'm a Pizza, I mean Porsche.

This is what's been keeping me busy.

You may start replacing "the" with "teh" in your vocabulary because even Wikipedia has acknowledged teh's um, arrival:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teh

Anyone who dares to challenge teh status of "teh" should be dismissed as not getting teh Interweb culture.

We're going on a vacation at the end of the month.  Personally I'd be happy with taking a few days off from work and just stay home.  But the wife has this crazy idea of flying to Paris and London for a week.

The only European country I've ever been to was Portugal, but I can't really claim with conviction that I've been to Europe because it really doesn't count.

"Have you ever been to Europe?"

"No I haven't.  But I've visited Portugal back in 2000."

"You dumb ass."

In light of the Virginia Tech shooting, can someone please explain to me why guns aren't banned in the US please?

Gun proponents tend to have the following two arguments (in red is my view):

1. The gun is merely the means to commit the crime, hence it should not be banned.  Case in point: fertilizer should not be banned just because Timothy McVeigh used it to destroy the Oklahoma City Federal building.  The root cause is the perpetrator and the focus should be put on that person.  Terry: the main purpose of fertilizer is to grow big fat beets, where as a gun has no other purpose than to kill.  What is the logic of NOT banning something of which the sole purpose is to kill?  The point of focusing on the perpetrator is completely valid, but what is wrong with taking the means away from him?  A counselor does not give a potential killer a knife and expect him to not use it.
2. A person determined to cause harm to others will not be stopped even if guns were banned.  Terry: if we can't stop a twisted mind , then at least we should make it tremendously difficult for him to acquire a gun.  If the person has to jump through hoops to obtain a gun, then maybe he could be stopped during that process.  As oppose to a scenario in a gun-everywhere society where one could wake up in the morning, brush his teeth, have a coffee, then go buy a gun from the supermarket and shoot everyone in sight.

Comments please.

I thought I should give you an update on what's been going on in the last few months.

• Sept 2006 - my parents started staying at my aunt's place in London, Ontario.  She has contacts with some local doctors from whom my dad could get better cancer treatment - advance stage cancer
• October 2006 - my brother quit his job in Hong Kong.  He came back to Canada to take care of the parents
• The doctors told my dad he has "weeks" to live
• November 2006 - dad's condition stabled a bit, enough to take a Carribean cruise.  But his pain lingered
• December 2006 - they moved back to Toronto
• December 31, 2006 - the lingering abdominal pain suddenly turned into sharp pain.  We took him to Sunnybrook's emergency room
• Throughout the entire time he was in the hospital right up to the end, he had good days and bad days.
• My mom was almost constantly by his bedside.  We tried our best to spend as much time with him as possible
• Two of my aunts flew in from Hong Kong to see him.  They each stayed for a couple of days.
• January 15, 2007, 9:45am - after having breakfast, my dad fell asleep.  Then he peacefully passed away.  My mother was by his side.
• January 20 - the funeral was held at York Cemetery.  A number of friends, family and former colleagues flew in from all over the world.  Edmond Chan was finally laid to rest on this cold but bright winter day around 1pm.

"Yak-kee Shan"

What I was called by a Cuban dude while visiting Havana a couple of weeks ago.

Twenty years ago, I coulda been called "Bru-cey Lee".  These days I'm Yak-kee, now that's progress.

PS: for those who don't get it, "Yak-kee Shan" is how "Jackie Chan" is pronounced in Spanish.