iProducts

Up until a few months ago, I have been outside of the Apple universe. Numerous of you are loyal and enthusiastic users who repeatedly extolled how the products are far superior and have pontificated how could anyone use other products. OK, most of that talk was about computers and not the handheld devises, but still. Our reason for staying (and continuing to stay) with PC’s is because the lifeblood of our industry is the program AutoCad which to my knowledge either only runs on PC’s or it could be our employers choose PC’s because they are cheaper. So in order to remain compatible with our work computers, we have stayed with PC’s (and likely because they are cheaper).

At my previous job, all the others at my level were given iPhones as their work cellphones. Due to a technicality, I did not receive one. I did not press the matter (along with other perks) since I did not plan to stay and did not want to have reasons to feel obligated to stay. Regardless, I was a bit jealous. I’m not a tech junkie by any means. Heck, I finally got a phone with internet access only a year ago. I just feel the technology will trickle down and we’ll ‘make do’ with the affordable technology available to us. But then I finally switched jobs. Again my peers had iPhones as their work cellphones, so I asked to have one also and it was granted.

Now I had seen from the iPhones of both my father and sister that they are impressive, so I as very interested to explore what they are capable of. Between the music, the geolocation, the internal gyroscope, and even the camera, I have been blown away.

A couple years ago, I dabbled a bit with mp3′s. I was impressed at the portability and wanted to use them for music in the car. Outside of music in the car, I haven’t really listened to music either with a walkman or in the house. In regards to a walkman, I stopped listening to those outside the house in my mid-teens. I was out for a run in the city and I just felt I should be more aware of my surroundings for fear of not hearing an approaching car or a mugger. In the house, we stopped listening to music after we had our first-born. I think it was part due to keeping it quiet for her to sleep and part from fatigue of our old CD’s. Our CD buying dropped quite significantly after that. MP3′s improved our enjoyment of music in the car since I could burn a hundred favorite songs onto a CD. But due to the software we were using, it was very tedious to select and burn the songs from the original CD’s to the computer. I also tried working with low-cost mp3 players, but in the car we’d always forget to turn them off and they’d often be out of power when we wanted to use them. I did try out iTunes, but didn’t realize that it would only work with iProducts, so I abandoned it since I wasn’t willing to shell out the cash. I was also peeved that it’s a proprietary system requiring you to buy THEIR products. But now that I have an iPhone, that completely changed. I’ve been impressed with how easy it is to rate and organize the songs and upload them to the phone. I’ve uploaded all our CD’s and have been busy rediscovering so many songs that I rarely listened to since they are on albums with other songs I don’t want to listen to. I’m back to listening to music on a daily basis and may start wading back into discovering new groups. iTunes may reignite my interest in music the same way Flickr reignited my interest in photography.

As for the other aspects, they have been icing on the cake. I’ve always been a patient person and don’t get bored easily usually using down time to find interesting things around me. Now this is going to sound oddly ominous, but this devise has filled in those down times. When I’m in the bus or the metro or other waiting times, I pull it out and check my email (I’ve become much much better at responding because of it), play a game, or check on the news. I love the portability of having the phone and a mini-computer in one devise. With the geo-location you can check what are the local restaurants and how they are rated on either Urbanspoon or Foursquare. With the internal gyroscope you can see what are the current constellations in the sky (Skywalk) by pointing the phone in that direction or use the phone like a steering wheel for a number of driving games.

Since I’m big into photography, I must talk about the camera. It is incredibly convenient to have the camera included in such a powerful device. It is a decent camera even if it is not as versatile and powerful as a real SLR. But in addition to the convenience, there are multiple apps that make it fun to play with the images along with utilizing the gyroscope capability to create panoramic photos.

The power of the devise and the possibilities have really blown me away. I completely understand now all the hype that I had heard in the past.

Olympic Skylight

The Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Resolutions – Eating

Oddly I am still continuing this series despite that we are almost a year from when I made these resolutions, but then, they still apply and I’ve continued to practice them.

One of my many resolutions last year was to eat better. Part of that was the perennial favorites of eating more fruits and vegetables, but the bulk of the resolution was to steer toward ‘basic’ and simple food. I believe that one of the major problems with society today is that we rely entirely too much on convenience. I will elaborate on this topic more in a later post, but in regards to food, I feel we should step away from the ready-made or food engineered for quick preparation. I’ve heard it said that:

“Food is the one thing you can buy that actually becomes a part of you.”

We have friends in France who stop every evening at the grocery store to buy items to prepare for supper. It means what they have bought is fresh and it has not been artificially preserved. When I lived there I was surprised that I couldn’t find ready mix and cook meals like mac-n-cheese or hamburger helper. The end result was that I had to cook all my meals from scratch. My two specialties were spaghetti and stroganoff. I made the spaghetti sauce using freshly chopped onions, peppers, and garlic adding tomato sauce and olive oil. The stroganoff was much more basic with fresh cream, beef bouillon, dijon mustard, and chicken, but it was still from scratch and not from powder out of a packet. I ended up losing 10 or 15 pounds during those first few months and I ate quite well. Granted, nowadays as two working parents, we still need to rely on some conveniences, but we make an effort to return to basics.

The other part of this resolution is the effort to buy organic food. A local science program had a report on how pesticides become more concentrated in children due to the ratio of the quantity of food they eat to their actual size. Even if you take children out of the mix, I have become concerned about the amount of chemicals that we come in contact with. Add to that the fact that food passes inside us in contact with more sensitive parts of us. Then think about all the years of that type of contact (something I thought about this year since I turned 40). Another aspect of organic food apart for pesticides is just that the animals used for meat are treated correctly. Part of me believes that happy animals relay ‘good karma’ through their meat. Yes, these ‘extra’ measures to make organic food end up costing more, but if it means I will be a healthier and happier person, then I’ll gladly pay the extra price.

Chompers

The Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton named ‘Sue’ at the Field Museum in Chicago

Future of Transportation

During our trip holiday trip last December I had a bit of a revelation. (Yes, it took me a long time to finally write about it, but I haven’t really been active on the blog.) Seeing some of the recent innovations that have come to the market, made me think of where we are likely heading with personal transportation.

For some time now, I’ve been pondering about what direction our methods of transportation will take. Since my hope is that we become more symbiotic with nature and less dominant over nature, my hope has been that we return to mass transportation of people and goods. The reduction of gas-powered vehicles on the road will reduce green house gases, make life safer for pedestrians, and reduce stress of those operating the vehicles (road rage). One of the major obstacles for the reduction of personal transportation is that we love the convenience and flexibility of being able to drive ourselves anywhere whenever we choose.

But around the holidays there were a few innovations that I became aware of. First we got our first GPS and used it for our long drive down to Florida. I was impressed at how it would divert us if it got information of traffic and how it could sense if we were in the wrong lane to make our exit. It is also capable of finding the next gas station (or restaurant) when necessary. Another couple innovations have been the capability of cars to park themselves and to brake automatically if it sensed an obstacle. The capability of cars to sense and react to their immediate environment is now apparent. And lastly, electric-powered cars are finally reaching the market.

My revelation came when I wondered about combining all of these together with some additional technologies. We could soon all be ‘driving’ electric-powered cars that would drive themselves. I have seen that the technology has been present for sometime that cars could follow magnetic strips laid into the road. This along with the GPS could guide a car to it’s destination. The braking capability could keep it at the correct distances from other cars and pedestrians. And the cars could be electric powered. With all of these together, you could get in your car, type in your destination, then allow the car to proceed without worrying pretty much about anything. The technology is there that it would determine what parking options and spaces are available. It would determine if you need to recharge or refuel and where you could do it. Plus there would always be the option of taking manual control if necessary. But with my recent experience with a smartphone, it’s quite possible that people would resign themselves to allow the car to do the driving while they attend to other constructive or non-constructive activities.

Just as the car radically transformed travel, this could do the same without changing the form of the actual cars. Since the cars would be programmed to follow the speed limit, there would be no speeding. There would be no traffic accidents or collisions with pedestrians or bicyclists. Road rage would be eliminated since the cars would proceed in an orderly fashion. Though that’s assuming everyone on the road is driving an automated car. It might even eliminate traffic jams. It would free up everyone to do what they please while in a car, work, relax, or even sleep. In many ways it would be like taking an automated train.

It’s interesting since much of this sounds like some pie-in-the-sky science fiction from the 50′s, but given recent advances in technology, it doesn’t seem that too far off.

Clang, Clang, Clang Went the Trolley

The old Montreal trolley which circles the ExpoRail Museum in St-Constant. They have and excellent facility and some great old locomotives and railcars. Well worth a visit.

Resolutions – Employment/Career

Continuing my recollection of resolutions made at the start of this year, I come to the major subject of employment and career. When I left Chicago, there were some four major items I walked away from. While I would not see family, friends, and the city I love on a daily basis, I was able to return to visit all three every year or more to continue to enjoy them. But my job was different. I could come back to visit colleagues and that has been fun, but I walked away from a good position with excellent mentors, a solid network, and projects I greatly enjoyed.

When I came to Montreal, I had the good fortune of getting a job quickly with a firm that has done fairly interesting work, notably some with Cirque du Soleil. As with any move to a foreign country, I had to overcome a change in normes, a change in work methods, and most importantly a change in language. While I got along very well with my co-workers and my immediate superiors, the chemistry was not very good with the co-owner of the company. I thought about moving elsewhere, but two things held me back. First during the early years, I was obliged to stay there due to my visa situation. But after that was cleared up by becoming a permanent resident, I was still not able to attain my engineering license here in Quebec. During my interview process before coming to the province, it was stated to me that one firm would not be hired me without that license. Given that most aspects of my job were good or decent, I bode my time trusting that I would get my license after the application review process played out. Then I would be free to move on to wherever I chose.

Meanwhile, things slowly worsened for me at the firm. Partly due to some mistakes on my part and partly due to influence by the co-owner. It was a tough time with difficulties on the home front which likely contributed to the increasing difficulties at work. It all came to a head when I received the letter from the licensing board that my application to become a licensed engineer was rejected. For a few months after that I did some soul searching. While it was possible to complete a couple courses to have my application reconsidered, I was really in no shape to take night classes in addition to work and home after the difficulties at home. The whole ordeal left me with a lack of confidence and a lack of drive to continue pursuing engineering. It felt like the door toward becoming an engineer in Quebec had closed.

So my resolution at the beginning of the year (as with most of the other resolutions) was to do something about it. I started to think about switching careers. I have a education in architecture and I could take the licensing test in the states at any time since I have completed the internship process. Unlike engineering, I was told the reciprocity would have been much more straight forward. And I had passed the LEED exam reigniting my interested in sustainability. So around the beginning of the year, I set a course for returning to architecture with a strong focus on green architecture. I concentrated on firms that focused on green design. I attended lectures on green building systems and I started networking with those passionate about sustainability. I had many people say that any firm would someone with my background in engineering in a second. I even went through a handful of interviews. But ultimately I think my lack of a network is what inhibited my chances of getting job in green architecture.

Despite the lack of interest, I pressed on and found a position through an unlikely path. A while back I came in contact with a fellow blogger, Martin Houle, who runs a website dedicated to architecture and design in Montreal, Kollectif. I had been regularly reviewing the architecture job postings on the site when there was a posting from the structural engineering firm where Marty works looking for architects. I sent my CV to Marty curious of what the position entailed. Ultimately it was not really a position I was interested in and they were not interested in me working for them as an architect. They were interested in my engineering abilities. After so many months of having my heart set on returning to architecture, I was very hesitant. But after a couple interviews and learning more about the firm, it was the right combination of factors. A great project, a good team, and a new start.

It has almost been a couple months now and things have been going swimmingly. It has changed my outlook, my drive, and my mood. While it was an odd road to get here (like so many things in my life), everything is so different for just one year ago.

Habitat

This photo of Chicago basically covers the area where I spent 96% of my life up until 18 years of age.

Resolutions – Running

As mentioned in a previous post, I made a handful of resolutions at the beginning of the year geared toward making myself better. One of the first resolutions was getting more exercise or more precisely running more.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I used to be big into distance running from about 12 years old until about 10 years ago. And you also know that my mother runs marathons regularly. She’s getting close to running her 100th marathon and her current quest is to run a marathon in every state. The 50 state quest has brought her up to the Northeast a couple times now for marathons up here. A few years ago she intended to run two marathons in two days. New Hampshire on Saturday and Maine on Sunday. I brought the girls down to cheer her on for the New Hampshire Marathon. But as she was coming into the finish line, she picked up the pace to impress the girls and ended up breaking her toe. Since she could barely walk, she abandoned the Maine leg of the weekend.

Then late last year, she told me that she was planning to run the Mount Desert Island Marathon in October. I’d been looking for a good reason/goal to get back into shape and running the marathon with her would be a great one. Actually the last time I ran a marathon was also with her for her 50th marathon 10 years ago. This one won’t be her 100th, but she’s getting close. The Mount Desert Island Marathon also appealed to me because we went there for a vacation during my early teens. In fact my mother and I went out for a run along the coast back then, which is part of the race course.

With that in mind, I began attempting to run last winter. But I found that I became much more out of shape that I had thought. Now I’ve always been big on walking everywhere. I can walk 5 or 6 miles and my feet would start hurting before my legs would get tired. But running turned out to be a different story. I couldn’t run more than 100 yds before feeling a bit of tightness in my chest. So I took it slow alternating running and walking 1 mile. It took quite some time before I got in shape enough to do a mile without stopping. But then I started having a problem with another part of my body. It’s hard to describe, but it is like the interior muscle of my calf would tighten up and hurt if I pushed it too hard. Then it would ache for a day or two and instantly start hurting if I tried to run through it. I tried a bunch of different things: stretching, running slower, resting more. Until finally I took some peoples advise and bought a new pair of shoes. That worked great for a while, but then it flared up again in mid-June. By then I had gotten up to 8 miles on my long runs. For a marathon you should run at least one 20-miler before the race.

Since mid-June I haven’t run much. It was part due to the injury, part due to the incredible heat, and part due to my dislike of waking up early to get in the run. As a pair of working parents who alternately take care of the kids in the evenings, mornings are the only time I can get in a run. If I’m up too late the night before, I jeopardize being tired all day by getting up early for the run. So I’m still working on getting myself in bed by a good time (maybe I should cut down on the movies for a while). But since my training is now behind schedule, I’ve had to revamp and rethink the training program. There is the Galloway training program which allows you to alternate running and walking to get you in form for the race. I am working out a modified version of this so that I can be in shape by October. I just need to be sure my legs and feet are ready enough to spend the 6-odd hours to get to the finish line.

Airplane Warning Light

At the top of the University of Montreal tower.