IanService.com News

Life in a Day

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:28:22 -0400

Ridley Scott invited the world to film what they did on July 24th and submit footage to the Life in a Day experiment on YouTube. I decided to partake and here's my Life in a Day.

Old Spice Voice Mail MP3s

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:17:47 -0400

Loving these Old Spice videos, someone named Pandarr requested content for their voice mail message so I chopped up the video and amplified the audio. Quality isn't great once it's been amplified but when you put the files onto an asterisk box it sounds just fine on the phone.

Here's the torrent.

Or, if you're not the do-it-yourself kind of man you should be, you can always use OldSpiceVoiceMail.com to generate a single file for you.

Chill Pill Required

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:56:05 -0400

Dropped off the Mrs to do a presentation for the Girl Guides who are having a big week-long camp and for the most part they were happy people who were happy to have the participation. There were however some older camp leaders who were obviously running low on patience and a brought a lot of memories back to me.

When I was in Scouts and Ventures and we ran into Guides, Pathfinders or Rangers at some kind of co-ed function they would always go on and on about how we got to do whatever we want. Of course we begged to differ, because we got in our fair share of trouble. But when I think about the countless hours we spend wandering around Goodyear Memorial's 104 hectare property unsupervised throughout the many weekends we spent up there, they did have it a lot worse. We'd learn how to do practical things like make a fire, snare food if we were lost in the woods, play with knives for hours on end or go through an obstacle course made from logs and rope by kids only a few years older than us. They'd tell us about knitting, excessive crafts and not being able to go do stuff fun stuff like recklessly tobogganing down an icy road for hours.

Kids are being padded these days. Gone are the all wooden playgrounds with pea gravel where you could shimmy across the top of the beam which holds up the swings only to get a splinter while risking the 25foot fall. Now it's all Fibertop padding and a completely lack of merry-go-rounds that produced more Gs than you could possibly withstand so you inevitably flew off. I think the Girl Guides was like Scouts with that padding added when I was that age.

The point of Scouting, if you ask me, is to learn to become independent and that's something you can't do if you're not allowed to try crossing the creek using a branch hanging from a tree as leverage. You won't fall in but you also won't solve the problem of getting across the river for yourself.

Many of the Guiders are perfectly logical people who let their kids learn and have fun while doing it, but there are a number of leaders who make rules for the sake of making rules and don't let their kids run mucks, which is what being at camp is all about. Organized chaos... possibly safe.

Fortunately, since I've grown up, Scouts Canada is now open to boys and girls so even if we weren't having a boy, my kid would still never have to be a Girl Guide.

The Phrozen Pharaoh

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:45:52 -0400

Stu's awesome video for M&M Meat Shops 30th anniversary video contest is complete and is much more than awesome! Check it out!

Come Fail Away!

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:09:48 -0400

Why won't that fail whale go away?

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:02:09 -0400

I wanted to tweet this...

I guess it's a blog post then, even if it's only tweet-worthy. Look what you've reduced me to Twitter.

We're Going To Be Parents!

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:37:17 -0500

Big amazing exciting news! I'm going to be a daddy! It's amazing how something so little (about the size of a lime right now) can be so exciting.

Meet Jamhands EAVB_QNHJYUGZNH

Dublin Marathon Impressions

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:57:19 -0400

First of all, I just wanted to thank everyone for sending their well wishes, whether it be via facebook, the runGuelph.com mailing list or text messages and Twitter. (We're a very plugged in group it seems).

This was my first international marathon and my second marathon. I've done a few halfs in the last year but nothing compares to the effort of a full marathon. My plan was to beat my time from the year previous which was 4:10:02 and ideally I wanted to go below 4 hours.

Traveling definitely tires you out even though you may not feel it after a couple days, everything impacts the second half of your race. I stayed with friends which was as close to staying at home as you can get when you're away. John and Siobhan did an amazing job of feeding me and making sure I was entertained during my visit.

I found it very difficult to sleep the night before which is extremely rare, I can usually get to sleep without even trying. It compounded any nerves that I was feeling because I couldn't sleep so that panicked me more, which made it harder to sleep, and so on.

The morning of the race, I was actually very calm, I guess I got all of the being nervous out of my system the night before and since I was already packed and ready to go there was nothing to worry about. Plus by that point, you just have to adapt, you can't worry about what's happening at that second.

The drive into town was perfectly executed, John navigated the best path and Siobhan wheeled us into town right on time and I just had to make my way to Krista & Chris' hotel so that I could drop off my luggage. At this point I was just very excited that the race was close to happening.

Since it was a bank holiday Monday (that's actually the formal name for the holiday) the streets were quiet except for a bunch of runners walking around to the start line with their Adidas bags on their backs. The Race kit came in a very durable plastic bag with nylon cords to pull it closed and a place to put a sticker with your bib number on it so that you could check your bag. Very well organized just like everything else having to do with the race.

We prepared by putting on some Canadian flag and maple leaf temporary tatoos and made our way down to the race start.

The race start coral was blocked off to begin with. At first it almost looked like we were going to have to start on the side street we were instructed to follow to get to our start point, but then as it got closer to the race start, they let us file into the wide street and we could see the big balloon arch of the start.

It was then that we saw the pacemakers (instead of our pace bunnies) who carry big helium balloons so that you can easily see where they are and it doesn't add any weight to the pacers. Another thing we thought was cool.

The cannon went off and we were on our way, I ran ahead very solid and I was doing very well until about 19km or so when the sun came out and lit up the course. I don't run very well in the sun, it slows me down almost immediately. I had been told, and figured that based on the weather we'd seen in Dublin that this would be temporary sun, but no such luck. The sun combined with the slow rolling hills made me slow down considerably as the run got harder and I got tired.

With Roy, Krista F and Krista L's help I had selected a Canada sleeveless T-shirt to wear and I'm very glad I did. During every stretch of the race there were always people lining the course clapping and cheering, especially at turns in the course. Every time I ran by a group of people I would get "Go Canada!" cheered at me. It makes for an amazing motivator when you're feeling slow and defeated. The only problem was that it seemed that each time I past the crowds it would be during a walk break which is exactly what Roy told me had happened to him in the States during one of his races.

The crowd along the course was amazing, very supportive and there were just so many of them out there for every stride.

Ballygowan was the drink sponsor and they had 300mL water bottles on course at the water stations with big comforting banners to indicate that they're coming up. Though I'm sure it was wasteful, the water bottles were fantastic to have because you can run with them for a while instead of flimsy cups which spill all over you and end up not really helping your hydration.

In the last kilometre or so, I popped on some more Green Day and Living End songs that have quick tempos and ran through the crowd as best I could until I hit the 400m mark where all that last effort caught up with me and I started to feel faint. I didn't want to risk getting pulled off the course so I walked for another couple hundred metres and guzzled more water so that I could make it through the finish line which was in sight. Picked it up yet again and crossed the line feeling like complete crap. Running is amazing. My final finishing time was 4:25:09. (4:27:09 gun time)

The best part of the destination marathon was the after party. We headed down to Temple Bar, an area in Dublin filled with pubs and restaurants and we had a fantastic night talking to runners from all over the world. We met people from the Netherlands, Wales, Germany and the Carolinas in the US. There were a couple guys there who had actually run a marathon in Wales on Saturday, a marathon in Essex on Sunday and then they had just finished Dublin that day. "Never again" they said.

I think I need more marathons under my belt and to decrease my personal best time before I decide to travel for another marathon but the experience was great. Thanks again to John & Siobhan for making a home for me, Krista & Chris for making room for me to stay with them and everyone for the worldwide support team.

Something fun for a Friday

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:31:50 -0400

Okay, I've got my Fedora 11 workstation up and running properly again and one of things I that bugs me is that I'm so used to using the Windows key (or Super key in the Linux world) to launch applications. In Windows 7 (and Vista) you can simply press the Windows key and then just start typing what you want to open which allows you to very quickly open programs and documents/files, whatever. So I basically needed an application that launches stuff, they call them launchers. And since I use Gnome as my window manager, Gnome Do fit the bill quite nicely. I installed do and then it's command to run is Super key and space. The problem with that is I just want the super key to bring it up. I tried to map it to just the super key within the application but that didn't work. Then I figured it out, if you use the operating system option (Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts) and add a custom one to launch Do, you can assign that just the Super key. Now my Linux world works like my Windows world and with a single key press and typing "f" and pressing enter, I have Firefox running. It's quick and there's and no mouse clicks required.

Martin Streek has died?

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:44:29 -0400

I'm seeing a lot of buzz from 102.1 The Edge staff on Twitter and on looking at his Facebook stream, Martin has one last message saying; "So...I guess that's it...thanks everyone...I'm sorry to those I should be sorry to, I love you to those that I love, and I will see you all again soon (not too soon though)... Let the stories begin."
Then there's a whole lot of rest in peace messages pouring in. As one of the only celebrities in the news that I've actually met, this one actually means something to me. Gotta find out what's what.

A couple well written memorials by Martin's friends...
Alan Cross
Fred Paterson