Yes, it has been quite a while since I wrote an entry, dear diary. It is not that you have offended me, or that you have forsaken me, or even ignored me. My life, of which you are blissfully unaware, has been quite busy of late. Yes, quite busy.
First, I left my old job working on computer-vision related software for automated security camera surveillance. I had worked on that software for the bulk of five years. It seems like quite a long time to be working on the same thing, at least for me. I suppose many other people spend 10, 15, even 25 years or more at the same job. I’m afraid that would drive me completely cuckoo. I took a job at a small Calgary firm specializing in enabling medical imaging applications to be distributed to less powerful computers, even over the web. It seems a very promising business to be in, and I look forward to helping out as much as I can.
I’ve been writing most of the software I’ve needed to write using Microsoft Silverlight 3. These medical imaging applications really work well over Silverlight. Much faster than the old Flash applications that they were written in. Though, I really wish we had a graphic designer familiar with Silverlight on the team. I find it really hard to stand in both the designer and the developer camps. I’ve been doing some evaluation of Silverlight 4, and I am really happy that it is going to mean very few changes to our existing code base.
So, sometime along the way, Bonnie and I decided it was time to look into selling our house and moving into another, larger, one. We found a house we liked, and we had to sell our old house in order to make an acceptable offer on this house. We did that in 4 days on the market. We were able to get a very good price for our old house, and so we were able to afford to move into a house that is in a more interesting neighborhood, closer to malls, restaurants, libraries, pools, and so on. I can walk to the train (or take a bus in 5 minutes if it’s cold). And my commute has gone from 3 hours per day down to a little under 2. It seems like a lot, but really it’s not so bad, I don’t have to do very much so I get a lot of music listening and reading done.
Bonnie and I were scheduled to go on a vacation after we sold our house, but Aedan and I both came down with H1N1 and we had to cancel the trip. We’ll go sometime in the spring instead. I think it’ll work out a lot better that way.
All of this happened between September 15th and the start of December. And so, now, it’s snowy, cold, and nearly Christmas again. Time for work Christmas parties, and lots of squeaky boots on ice and snow.
