Elton John Concert

Yes, that's right... I went to see Elton John in concert. No, it wasn't my ideal way to spend a Saturday night, but it made Marie happy. And we all know that a happy wife is a good wife!

That, and it was her 30th birthday!

This picture shows just how excited she was to be there.



That one was at the very beginning, just as Sir Elton was coming out on stage. Here's another pic of Marie at the end. She was so excited that I couldn't get a picture without her bouncing all over the place.



I think she's singing in that picture.

Anyway, we had a fine time (that is, she had a GREAT time and I managed to get through it without swearing, so it averages out to "fine").

Happy Birthday, p'tit chou!

Poppies poppies everywhere poppies!

Yes, this little red flower has been driving me nuts! You see, fellow Americans, the Canadians, with their oh-so-British background, have a tradition of wearing red poppies on their clothing to show their support for veterans and to honor the soldiers who have died. You see, November 11th is "Remembrance Day" here in the Great White North, which is equivalent to our Memorial Day (In fact, I think it's the same weekend).

But this little plastic-y wanna-be flower has taken these people over. Turn on the TV and everyone is wearing one. Walk down the street and you'll see a dozen in a single block. Walking through the airport will have you seeing red, too. It seems like anybody who is anybody is wearing one.

So what's my problem, then? Well, I don't have a problem with wearing a red poppy in honor of dead soldiers. What I have a problem with are the ramifications of NOT wearing a red poppy! Take, for example, the recent story that made big headlines in the UK and some mention here (and probably none in the US). The Duchess removed her poppy because it was interfering with a scarf she was wearing as to not offend her Islamic host. People are really angry about this! It's as if NOT wearing a poppy is a sign that you DON'T remember the dead soldiers and/or support Canada's veterans. How on this green earth did simple omission of support become synonymous with anti-support?! It's absurd!

Now, let me say for the record, that I don't mean what I'm saying to disparage any veterans or anything. If you want to support them, please go right ahead. BUT, don't look at people who haven't paid their $0.25 donation to the Veteran's Association as some sort of scum of the earth.

Bringing this conversation closer to home, the Canadian news has been reporting about a group in Alberta who have been passing out white "peace" poppies to support - you guessed it - peace! And this has, strangely, gotten the Veterans all upset! They say that what these people are doing is infringing on their trademark and it's illegal, etc, etc. Give me a break! What's worse than not supporting your Veterans?! Not supporting PEACE! In fact, the Veterans should be praising these people because if there was more peace there'd be fewer dead Veterans!

You Vets did a very noble thing in fighting for your country and you deserve to be respected for it. But don't belittle the people working for peace.

House Update

You may already know that we're buying a new house. Unfortunately, we need to sell our condo before we can buy the house we want. The good news is that we showed our condo on Saturday morning and things went really well! The lady loved it and said she was going to talk to the bank today (Monday) to see if she can afford it. Hopefully we'll hear from her this week.

But, even if we don't, we have an open house on Sunday, so hopefully that will bear some fruit, too. In any event, things are looking a lot better than they were a few weeks ago. And we've done it all (so far) without the "help" of a realtor.

Speaking of which, the realtor of the people from whom we're buying called on Sunday to give us a hard time and get an "update" on how things were going. Foretunately I had the good news I mentioned above and was able to fend her off for a while. I don't like her. I'm sure I'll write up a nice article about her once the deal is done, but for now I'll bite my tongue.

So if all goes as well as I hope, we'll be moving in the last half of January. Not the best time to be moving in Canada, but at least the movers will be cheap!

Maggie's Birthday!

Today is Maggie's birthday! For those of you who don't know, Maggie is our little, white, neurotic, and horribly cute miniature poodle. She turns five today!

Actually, she probably turned five sometime in the last year, but we got her in October of last year and October 10th is midway between my birthday and Marie's, so we decided that today is the day from now on.

Here are some pictures from the last year of our little doghter!


This was her when we found her at the SPCA.


Here she is looking cute with her petite os.


Finally, here she is looking cute.

Ok, so I like my dog. Since we're not having kids, this is as close as we're getting to posting baby photos, so deal with it!

Bonne Fete, p'tit chien!

Quite a Stink

A journalist has posted an article in The Globe and Mail that has really caused quite a commotion in French Canada (The article requires registration, so I suggest that you follow the link and then go to http://www.bugmenot.com to get a login in order to read the entire article without registering). Since some of you may not want to go through all of the trouble of getting a login to read the entire article, I'll sum it up.

Basically, the article is a very detailed account of the events of the Dawson College shootings from multiple points of view. This is not such a big deal. However, amidst these stories is an attack on French Quebeccers that - implicitly - blames them for what happened at Dawson College. I say "implicitly" because she never comes right out and says it. She basically asks "Why do we keep having shootings in Montreal and not in Toronto, Vancouver, etc.?", then points out that immigrants in Quebec are marginalized by the French-speaking citizens, then points out that all three shooters of the events of the last 25 years have not been "pure laine", or a pure French-Quebeccer. The assumption, then, is that people who are marginalized are more likely to act out in aggressive ways, and since it is the French-speaking population that is doing the marginalizing, they are responsible for these tragic events.

It's been interesting to see how this has played out. Being a non-French speaking immigrant married to a pure laine Quebeccer, I get to see both sides pretty clearly. Marie-Pierre, of course, feels adamantly (as do all of the other French Quebeccers) that the author of this article is a nutjob. In the English news, however, this story has gone completely unnoticed. I figure that English Quebeccers are either 1) in complete agreement with the article or 2) feel that pure laine Quebeccers are marginalizing English speaking citizens and immigrants and are quietly letting this writer take out her emotions on the French-speaking community whether or not they agree with her. I prefer to think it's the latter.

What I find interesting about all of this is how angry French Quebeccers have gotten over it. It even warranted a good deal of discussion on the strangely popular "Tout le monde en parle" television program. But why are they so upset?

In my opinion, they're upset because they're afraid it's true! Now, let me qualify this by saying that I feel the author is talking about two issues here: 1) pure laine French Quebeccers alienate the English and immigrant communities and 2) the shootings at Dawson, Concordia, and the Politechnique were the result of this alienation. I want to make it very clear that I completely disagree with point #2. To be more precise, I DON'T BLAME THE FRENCH QUEBECCERS FOR THE SHOOTINGS AT DAWSON, CONCORDIA, OR THE POLITECNIQUE. OK? Now that I got that out of the way, let's continue.

As a non-French speaking immigrant to Quebec, I can personally testify that French-Quebeccers do marginalize their English and immigrant neighbors. I sincerely believe that most of them don't do it on purpose; I think they are the products of the Quebec system. You see, the difference comes down to "integration" vs. "assimilation". French-Quebeccers are some of the most accepting people ever when you talk about assimilation. That is, "if you come to Quebec and you're willing to leave your culture behind and do as we do, then you are extremely welcome". However, when you talk about integration, the story changes completely. French Quebeccers aren't interested in having cultures other than their own co-exist inside their communities. I think this comes from the (real) fear of losing their own culture, and so any other culture suddenly becomes a threat. While there is no doctrine that states "A good Quebeccer should marginalize immigrants", it is clear that a good Quebeccer should speak French and protect their culture at all costs; even at the expense of non pure laine Quebeccers. Just to give one more example of how French Quebeccers are more interested in assimilation than integration, take the school system. I don't know the law completely, but it's something like this: Your child must attend a French school unless at least one parent or sibling has attended an English school in Quebec. So this basically means that all immigrants MUST be cultured in French and bilingual families who were raised French MUST send their child to French school.

If you are willing to give up your culture and take on the persona of a pure laine Quebeccer (assimilation), you will be right at home as an immigrant in Quebec. However, if you want to keep your culture and your language while living in Quebec (integration) then you will very likely be marginalized.

But if you do something idiotic, don't try to blame it on the well-intentioned French speakers who inadvertently marginalized you while trying to protect their language and culture.

New look!

In case anyone is paying attention, I've drastically changed the look of the blog. Don't panic. i've just upgraded to the new Blogger Beta and am playing with some of the new features.

Official University Student

I've been terribly busy lately with our new Disk Library product. When I was at my old job in Chicago, we were one of about 30 customers to get the initial release of this product. When I moved to Montreal and got a job with the vendor of this product, I apparently became the resident expert for all of Canada (quite by default). Now, I want to give myself some credit because I do know the product pretty well, but I never expected to be THE expert.

Anyway, that's the end of my excuse for not posting. I've been traveling a lot (mostly to Toronto *ick*) and haven't had time to write an update. But now I do!

Tomorrow will be the third night of my Shiite Islam class at Concordia. It's a bit overwhelming to think that this is just the beginning of my qualifying work and that I still have an entire Master's program after this is finished! But, the course is going well so far. The first night was a waste of time since the professor was unable to make it due to a family emergency. The TA that she sent in her place was completely unprepared. Now, I can't blame her for that since she was doing the best she could last-minute, but still, it was a real waste.

Last week, the class was a lot better. We talked about the history of Islam and of Shiism, in particular. It's pretty facinating, really. The course should be really easy so long as I manage my time well. We already know what the final exam question is and what's expected for the final paper, so as long as I don't procrastinate I should do really well. I'm a little worried about the first exam, which is in a few weeks. It's been a long time since I've taken a real test (not one of those CBT's that we take for our certifications) and I'm a little worried I've forgotten how. I'm also worried that I believe my handwriting has actually gotten worse in the last few years, and it was already pretty bad to begin with! Too bad I can't type my test!

I'll write another update later this week. That is, if I don't put it off too long!

Drama in Montreal

As you may have heard, we had a very exciting day here in Montreal. To sum it up, yesterday around lunch time a kid walked into a CEGEP and started shooting people a la Columbine. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the events since that's all over the news right now. What I want to talk about is the reporting.

I appreciate the fact that CBC et al want to keep us up-to-the minute for these events. Personally, I was in Toronto driving to the airport when I heard about it. I text messaged Marie-Pierre (who was in Montreal) and she didn't even know something was going on. This theme was echoed by the reporters in Toronto and those at the scene in Montreal. The folks in Toronto on CBC Radio actually knew more about what was going on than the people standing at the yellow police line. What's wrong here? I suppose it's due to the confusion at the site.

Speaking of which, Concordia University (where I am now a student) opened up its doors to the CEGEP to help curb and resolve all of the confusion. Good for them! And CBC rightly interviewed a few people from Concordia about the days events.

Here's where it gets a little weird. One may ask "Hey, what's a CEGEP?" and if you live outside Canada I fully expect you not to know. In fact, if you live outside Quebec, I expect you to be a little fuzzy on the idea, but you should at least know, especially if you ever expect to hire someone raised in Quebec! Anyway, a CEGEP is like a Jr. College to which all University-bound students in Quebec go. It's like post-High School or, more appropriately, pre-University. It's such an ingrained part of Quebec culture that I've actually had to switch from saying "College" to "University" to describe my Bachelor's degree. In the United States we use the terms interchangeably, but they are very different things in Quebec. College=CEGEP and University=well, University!

So this reporter from Toronto (i.e. "The only place in Canada that really matters") on CBC asked a Concordia student how their opinions of the Dawson College students have changed in light of the shootings. She asked something along the lines of "How do you now feel about these students who maybe you've played sports against or had rivalries with?". First off, what is he going to say? "I think they're stupid"? No! What a loaded question. Secondly (and more obviously for people in Quebec), asking a question like that is like asking a High School soccer team about their arch-rival the local Kindergarten class! CEGEPs and Universities don't compete! They supplement!

One last thing, our dear Prime Minister called this a "cowardly" act. I have a little bit of a problem with this. I don't think this kid was a coward at all. I think he was very brave. Now, having said that, I feel I must qualify my statements by asking you, the reader, to not automatically equate bravery with something good. Just because someone does something brave doesn't automatically make what he did worthy. I think it takes a lot of balls to walk into a public place and disrespect the social contract. So I think this kid was very courageous..... a friggin' idiot, but courageous. He clearly needed some attention that he wasn't getting. Maybe people call him "cowardly" because he wasn't able to face up to the REAL problems he was having. If that's the case then, of course, I have to agree. Also, please don't think that I'm saying this kid is a hero or glorifying what he did. Far from it. I feel that he had issues that were unresolved and they acted themselves out in a very violent and inappropriate way.

Anyway, this is a long rant about a very unfortunate situation. I'll close by saying that I feel very bad about what happened there and I'm glad for all of the students who managed to get out safely and unharmed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Happy birthday to me...
Happy birthday to me...
I smell like a monkey...
And I look like one, too!

Wait.... that doesn't rhyme. Whatever.

So I'm 30 today. That's right, the big 3-0. Maybe I'll start calling myself "Matt 3.0".

I have a whole lot to talk about since I haven't posted in quite some time, but I'm afraid that my car is being pulled around to the front of the hotel and I need to get going. At the very least, wish me a Happy Birthday!

Until later!

Concordia Update

It's been WAY too long since I've posted something useful, but here I am finally getting around to it.

Anyway, I was accepted as a Qualifying Student at Concordia in Montreal for the Fall term. In case you don't know what a "Qualifying Student" is (I didn't), it means that I have everything I need to get accepted to the Master's program EXCEPT a degree in a related field. As such, I need to go and do a bunch of undergraduate courses to get up to speed on the material.

I'm not too surprised that I was accepted (I know that sounds over confident, but really, my grades were good and I'm willing to pay them... what more do they REALLY look for?!), but it's nice to be officially accepted so that I can get started on making plans and arrangements.

The big road block was my job and my boss. I don't want to say my boss was a road block himself, but in this case the job and the boss are inextricably linked. You see, I travel a lot in my job which is a problem if I want to go to a class one night per week. I knew that I might be going back to school and so when I interviewed I told my then-future boss that I could do the traveling job for about a year. Then, four months after I started on the job (11 months before school was to start), I told my boss that I intended to go back to school. He was very positive and helpful and - while he made no promises - implied that things could be worked out. Yay!

So I pursued getting accepted into a program (ultimately it was the Master's in History and Philosophy of Religion at Concordia). This was a LOOOONG process. Mostly because I didn't know all the hoops I had to jump through. But Tina, from the Department of Religion, helped me though she made pretty clear that I was irritating. Anyway, I didn't know how the process worked and I didn't know anyone who did, so that's why I kept bugging her. In February I had my review with my boss and he asked where I saw myself in the next six to nine months. I'm not one to lie (I despise lying and I'm no good at it) so I just told him that I saw myself moving into another role that didn't require so much travel so that I could go back to school. Boy oh boy, he didn't like that one bit! He told me that there was no need for someone in the other role and that I'd have to set my priorities and decide which is more important, my job or going back to school. It was a horrible conversation. It sat with me for the next five months weighing me down and making me doubt my decisions. It didn't help my career, either, because I was totally not invested in my job anymore. I started looking around and applied for a few jobs, but nothing materialized.

Finally, when I was officially accepted, I could go back to my boss and really figure out what I was going to do. I was dreading the conversation completely! I managed to put it off for a week, but I knew that I had to do it. So I called him and started off with trying to butter him up with talk about the previous days' World Cup final. It seemed to work OK, so I quickly slipped into ultra-professional mode and made my case as succinctly as possible.

Then there was a silence. A silence that seemed to me like an eternity though it was probably fewer than two seconds. But in those two seconds after I had made my case and was waiting for a response a whole slew of things went through my head.

So after waiting what felt like forever, my boss responded that our company fully supports people who want to further their education and that I had made it clear that I intend to go back to school and we would have to find a solution. After this initial "Are you willing to talk about this" question, I started in on the details and after some back-and-forth we came to a compromise. It isn't a perfect situation for me (for sure), but it isn't perfect for my boss, either. And this, I suppose, is the heart of compromise. We each gave a little from our ideal situations and met somewhere in the middle. I'm a little bit concerned about how it's going to work out, but we'll see how that goes.

And now I need to figure out how to be a University student again. I went to orientation this week (what a joke) and - much to my surprise - I wasn't the oldest one there. I bought myself a new laptop/book bag that I can use (I needed one, anyway, so it worked out) for work and for school. I'll be going to buy myself a Five-Star One-Subject Notebook sometime in the next month.

And so my first class will be Shiite Islam. There's more on that at my other blog.

Wish me luck!

Where NOT to stay in Quebec City

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been busy. But, despite my extrodinarily busy schedule as of late, I was prompted to write a scathing review of my current hotel within 20 minutes of arriving.

Let me just tell the story and you'll get the list of my complaints while I'm at it. The hotel, by the way, is Le Priori in Quebec City.

First off, there's no parking lot, so you have to pull up on an already narrow street and park illegally while you check in. No big deal. I've done similar things before. So I check in and the guy is friendly and efficient. I ask what to do with my bike and he says to bring it in and he'll store it in the basement. So I bring in my luggage and drop it in my room only to run downstairs to get my bike (I am parked illegally, afterall). I take my bike off the rack and the guy holds the door for me and takes my bike away to some unknown place where I don't even know if it'll be locked up.

He tells me the parking lot is down the street and to go around the block and turn left at the light. He gives me this card with barcodes all over it and I head for the parking lot. When I get there, I see a machine where I presume you're supposed to put the card, but I quickly see no barcode reader (only magnetic strip readers) and, since the gate is already up anyway, I just drive on through.

BIG MISTAKE!

I suddenly realize that I'm probably in the wrong lot. So I pull up to the exit, where the gate is down, and pull out my AMEX Corporate card. My thought process is "I haven't been here that long, it can't be that much". The machine politely tells me that there is no record for my document... and that's all it tells me. No gate lifting, no "Please see attendant"... nothing. I hit the "Help" button (politely indicated with the universal sign for "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL I'M DOING", the question mark). Unfortunately, no one answers. Not in French, not in English... nothing. So I start over to the entrance to leave the way I came in only to discover that the gate has since been closed! Argh! I park my car and start wandering around thinking "Maybe I AM in the right lot". Sure enough, I find that I'm in the right place. However, I now know that, regardless of being in the right place, I still can't get out. But I know that I have this fancy schmancy card the guy gave me. So I walk up to the machine and... nothing. I mean, I can't even put my card in. There's nothing at all.... like someone shut off the power. Damnit! There's a weight sensing switch!

So I get back in my car and drive up to the damn machine and put my card in. It tells me - in French, that I can't leave without having entered. I don't know, but it sounds more Chinese to me. So I drive over to the teller and exclaim "I'm stuck in your lot! I try to leave and it tells me I can't leave because I haven't entered" and give him my card. He looks at me with a surprised expression and says - in perfect English - "I don't understand". So I explain (in REALLY bad French because I'm SO not trying at this point) that I want to get the hell out of there. He fiddles with my card and his computer for a while and then tells me - in French - that it's very important that I insert the ca...... whatever.... I drove off.

Now, it's important to note that I didn't really need to get out of the lot. I WANTED to park so I could go to my room and get some dinner. But I didn't want to leave my car there if I couldn't get out. So immediately upon exiting, I turn the corner and go back to the same gate that I entered the first time. THIS time, however, I have the power of knowing that I have a card that gets me in! So I insert my card and wait. The machine spits out my card and tells me it's in wrong. Remember, the only indicators on this machine say that the magnetic stripe goes down and to the right. But I have no magnetic stripe, I have a barcode! So I reorient the card and insert it again. Nothing. I reorient the card and insert it again. Nothing. I reorient the card and insert it again. Ding! The gate opens, I start swearing and my car gets parked! Yay!

Ahh.... so I walk to my hotel and go into my room, where there is a light on for my convenience. However, it's a bright light on the celing and I want more subtle, localized light. What do YOU do when you want more light? Do you, say, flick the switch? Turn the dimmer? Probably so! That's what I usually do, so that's what I did here. In fact, I have both a dimmer and a switch. The dimmer, as it turns out, is for the ceiling fan (yes, kids... ceiling fan!), and the light switch... well... I'm still not sure what it does other than make a 'click' when I flick it. It sure as hell doesn't turn on the lights right above it, though! So I go to the desk and try to turn on the lamp. No switch. Lovely. Ah! There it is on the cord. "Flick"... and then there was darkness. That's right, the switch does nothing! I have been blessed with not one, but TWO switches that don't turn on lights! So I call my new best friend at the front desk and he explains to me that the lights above the sink are controlled by another switch hidden under the shelf. Well, that explains the lights, but not that switch. Also, he tells me he'll come check the desk lamp. Which he does. Then he goes to get a bulb (couldn't have thought about that before there, couldya, Ace?!). He comes back with the bulb. The bulb is the wrong size. He comes back with another bulb. No light. I point out that the cord is mangled and he says he'll go get another lamp. Which he does. He returns. No light. Finally, I tell him that my laptop (which I had time to set up during this ordeal) was working fine so maybe he should try the other outlet. Ding! And there was light on the desk! Yay!

So I sit down at my desk to log into their complementary wireless internet (which I am using to write this now, by the way). I pull the chair up under me and... what's this? The arm of the chair falls off in my hand! What's next?! So I get logged onto the wireless network with little problem (BTW, the ESSID is "Wireless Priori" and the network key is their phone number "4186923992". Stop by and get some free bandwidth!). Ding! And there was wireless. And it was good.

So by this time (it's late, I won't even tell you about how long I had to wait for the ferry from Levis) I have to use the restroom. I go into this tiny little room with a toilet and a shower (the sink and the old-style bathtub are in the bedroom.... WTF?!). The toilet is not exactly clean and the whole seat assembly is as loose as a toddlers molars. Suddenly I realize that this place is about the quality of the Florenceville Motor Inn (yes, it's as bad as it sounds). The big difference is that the Florenceville Motor Inn doesn't pretend to be all fancy. They KNOW they're the Florenceville Motor Inn! They don't need to pretend anything! Le Priori is a pig with lipstick!

Yet to discover: Comfortable bed? Quality television? Quiet air cond.... damnit! The thing sounds like a jet coming in for a landing!

... And this place DARES to put an envelope in the room so you can tip your cleaning person. Bah!

BAH! I say!

SuSE 10.1 vs. Fedora Core 5

Today's post has nothing to do with Montreal, but I wanted to document my findings somewhere, so I'm putting them here. Enjoy!

Background
I am a long time SuSE user (Since 6.4 in 1999) and I've been quite happy with it. Lately, I've decided that I've wanted to see what all the fuss was about with Fedora. I mean, a lot of people use it, so it can't be all bad, right? So I made a big backup of my laptop system (Dell Latitude D600, 1 GB memory, 40 GB HD, 1400 MHz Pentium M, Dell 1350 b/g Wireless, Bluetooth PCMCIA) and installed FC5.

Installation
The SuSE install is very easy. You pick your partition layout (and modify it, if you want), pick your package base, then - optionally - select individual packages that are on the media. You press "GO!" and you're off.

The FC5 install was also generally easy. One thing I found extraordinarily frustrating was individual package selection. You can pick base packages, which is a nice idea, and even modify those selections. However, I knew that I needed the kernel source because I was going to have to build the VMWare kernel modules against it. I couldn't find it anywhere!

Booting
One thing I really like about SuSE (Since version 7.2) is that it uses the framebuffer device on console 1 (ctrl-alt-F1), so you get a nice pretty picture while you boot and anytime you're using console 1. I admit that I've had problems with this, but they've been very minor and I think it's a good feature.

In FC5, you boot immediately into runlevel 5 and X starts on console 8. This is fine, but you still see all of the kernel messages that you don't care about unless you're troubleshooting something. X doesn't start until udev is configured. Once FC5 is booted, the X server on console 8 is stopped and GDM is started on console 7.

Logging in
I have always used KDE under SuSE as it is the default. I know it and I like it, but I wanted to give FC5's defaults a good run, so I installed a GNOME system. It turns out there's a lot to get used to here! KDE has a control panel application while GNOME has a menu. Either way is fine and you can find most of what you want in either place. One thing I didn't like about the default GNOME configuration was the menu bar at the top of the screen and the task bar at the bottom. My laptop can only do 1024x768 so screen real estate is at a premium. Anyway, I rearranged things to be a little more KDE-like and I'm much happier now.

Post-Installation
This was perhaps the most frustrating part for me. I knew enough about FC5's installation to know that I needed to do a yum update to get the most recent packages. Much to my dismay, I had to update MANY MANY packages, which meant a download of another 600 MB! After having downloaded the ISO at 3 GB, this was a lot of data. But that was just the beginning!

I needed the kernel source for VMWare, so I did a yum install kernel-devel only to find that a newer version of the kernel source was installed than the kernel! yum did absolutely no version checking to make sure the versions were the same! However, once I got that issue worked out, I was able to install VMWare successfully.

Before discovering yumex (which is not installed by default) I was very frustrated because if I knew I needed a certain thing (kernel source, or a library, etc.) I had no way to easily "Browse" packages. Also, if you take a guess and run yum install foobar and foobar doesn't exist, it takes a LONG time to tell you that you're an idiot.

I was impressed that X configuration was flawless and virtually automated. That was nice. I tried to install the fglx drivers for my ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility, but I ended up with the same problems that I had under SuSE, so I went back to the stock X.org radeon driver.

Everything else was just configuration.

Applications
yumex was a good utility to discover. It's a little like YaST's software installer and YOU combined.

I'm really not impressed with Rhythmbox (mp3 player). I really like Amarok better. Unfortunately, Amarok requires the KDE system and I'm trying to keep this system completely GNOME.

GAIM installation was a dream with FC5 compared to SuSE. I downloaded the FC5 rpm for the most recent beta version and it ran with no problems. Under SuSE I have to install a bunch of *-devel packages and then compile from source. It works pretty well, but still.... it's nice to have an rpm.

Back to the VMWare installation, with SuSE I had to pre-compile the kernel after installing the kernel-source package before the VMWare modules would compile. While I've gotten used to this, it requires a very lengthy make cloneconfig && make all process every time the kernel is updated. Under FC5 I simply install the kernel-devel package (which is harder than it sounds) and then run the vmware-config.pl script.

Firefox was a pain, unfortunately. I was installing plugins and the right files were in the right places, but they didn't show up in about:plugins. I finally found out that it was an SELinux issue and got it corrected by following this guide. I would go so far as to say that it is a MUST to do the things in that link.

Networking
Not surprisingly, the onboard 10/100 Ethernet card worked out of the box with no tricky stuff. Less surprisingly, I've had nothing but trouble with the Wireless Mini-PCI card. Under SuSE, I installed NDISWrapper and things worked fine. I could even configure the wireless card from within YaST. WIth FC5, however, once I got NDISWrapper installed and configured, I had to manually create the configuration files for wlan0. Even when that was done, I had all sorts of packet loss and duplicates. It was terrible. I played with it some more and I don't know what fixed it, but it seems to work now.

One last note on wireless: With SuSE 10.0 and 10.1 if I cold booted the laptop while on battery power the system would hang when NDISWrapper was loaded. I learned to live with this and would either use Windows while booting with the battery or plug into the wall if I wanted to use Linux. Interestingly, if I booted into Windows on the battery and then rebooted (without losing power) I could successfully boot into Linux. Apparently something in SuSE wasn't powering on the card when the driver was loaded. I mention all of this because this problem doesn't seem to exist in FC5. I've cold booted on battery power and NDISWrapper loads just fine.

Summary
That's about it for now. I still haven't tested Bluetooth under FC5 yet. It was iffy but worked under SuSE 10.1 and I'm not really in any hurry to test it. I also haven't tested CD Burning. I think I can do this right from Nautilus, but I don't know how. X-CDRoast is a joke and I'll never use that again. Come on! No one uses ide-scsi any more!

In general, I was actually more pleased with FC5 than I thought I would be. It's A LOT of work to get it set up... far more than SuSE. Lastly, I get the feeling that FC5 is a little faster than SuSE 10.1. However, the difference may just be the result of filesytem fragmentation. But FC5 does something weird sometimes where it will take a LONG time to open an application for no apparent reason. From what I can tell so far this happens when the IP address changes while X is running. Very bizarre.

Update: June 29, 2006
I tested CD burning last night and it's actually somewhat easy to burn a CD from Nautilus *IF* you're going to burn a data CD. There is no way to burn an audio CD from within Nautilus. So, I installed gnomebaker, which is attempting to be a K3B replacement. It it pretty easy to use and looks like it would have worked fine - again - for data. But when I tried to add MP3 files to the project, I got an error saying that the plugins for audio/mpeg weren't installed. I Googled this and came up with lots of hits, but none of which worked. Finally, I saw a post that said that gnomebaker is nowhere near a replacement for K3B (yet). So that's it. I have to install K3B and all of the KDE libraries. Well, I may as well go ahead and install Amarok then, too.

St. Jean Baptiste Day

It's that time of year again! Yes, Quebec celebrates St Jean Baptiste day on June 24th. Now, a lot of people ask me what this holiday is or "Who's that?". Well, here is a wikipedia article that describes it. The last section of that page (that talks about the politics of the day) is the part of this celebration that I've noticed to be the most apparent. Like any long-running holiday, St Jean Baptiste Day has lost a lot of its original meaning and has become more about partying at free concerts than about any sort of cultural preservation.

For me, though, June 24th is important because it's the first real thing I did when I got to Montreal a year ago. We arrived in Montreal on June 20th, 2005 and I started my new job on June 27th, 2005. June 24th was nestled right in between those two significant events, so each year at St Jean Baptiste Day I will remember that it is the anniversary of me coming to Canada.

Housing Update

It's been a while since my last post, but things have been a little hectic. Work has picked up for me (finally) so hopefully I won't be sitting around on my rear for a while. I've never felt so useless as when you're not doing anything at all. I think doing a job you hate is still better than being bored.

As for the house hunt, Marie has decided that the house I mentioned a few weeks ago isn't for us. It's sad, but it's life. So now we're looking for something else, but so far the going is tough. I was really looking forward to moving, but I think it might have just been to add the excitement to my life that I'm missing in my job.

As for my admission into the Philosophy and History of Religion Master's program at Concordia, I heard today that they now have enough information to make a decision on my application. This is good news in that I've finally jumped through the right hoops, but I still feel like I'm damned in either case. If I don't get accepted I'll lose all hope that I can do something with my life that I actually enjoy, and if I do get accepted I'll be forced to decide how important it is to me and whether or not staying employed in a crappy job in order to pay the bills is better than doing what I really want to do.... something that would be fulfilling, not just filling, if you know what I mean.

So that's the story for the time being. I'm looking forward to being pretty busy for the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, both of the projects I'm scheduled for are likely to be postponed. Yippie! Two more weeks of sitting around on my ass wasting my life!

Terrorism in Canada

This weekend Toronto police arrested some 17 people for plotting a bombing in Toronto. Here is an article that talks about it.

Not surprisingly, there was a lot of talk about it on the Monday morning news. Apparently Canada is the last of the "five christian nations" - designated by Osama bin Laden - to be targeted.

I thought the reaction to this event here in Canada was interesting, especially considering the reaction in the States to Sep. 11. Now, let me just point out the obvious here: I am aware that the events of September 11th, 2001 are far more drastic than what happened in Toronto this weekend, so a comparison is inherently flawed, but I think certain comparisons can still be made.

Anyway, what I found interesting is that there is a lot of talk about how these people "used the internet" to immerse themselves in extremist Islamic movements and ideology. On Global Quebec a journalist was being interviewed and I was so expecting him to react the same way the United States did after Sep. 11th and say "We need to make sure that people can't view these anti-western views on the internet". Fortunately, he didn't say that. Instead, he basically said that we (Canadians) need to communicate better with people about what Canada is doing in the middle east and try to do our best to counter those extremist messages.

So, I was basically impressed that the first reaction isn't a Chinese-style "keep all the bad stuff out, that way it doesn't exist!" and went with a far more enlightened "We realize that there is bad stuff out there on the internet, and we need to make sure that people realize that it is propaganda".

At least, that's the way it is so far. Based on Stephen Harper's (short) track record as a mini-Bush, it wouldn't shock me at all if he started putting in a Police State just like Bush Jr.

Ruffian Teenagers

Lately I have been thinking that teenagers are almost always up to no good. I think this sentiment comes mostly from the recent thefts at our home (See my post from May 26th), but also from articles like this.

It's frustrating to me that I'm starting to feel this way because I know that not all teens are up to no good, and it makes me feel like an old fogey sitting on his porch in his rocking chair saying "Back in my day kids new their place!". As recently as a decade ago, I was a teenager. I don't completely remember what it was like, but I do remember doing some very responsible things as well as some stupidly irresponsible things.

I'm having trouble excusing the kids at the Ottawa marathon like the race coordinator apparently has done. His fix for the problem for next year is to "ask the city for a straighter course" and to "draw a solid blue line for runners to follow". I don't mean to state the obvious here, but how about "Getting someone other than teenagers to do the monitoring of blockades"?! Let's place blame where blame is due. The kids shirked their responsibilities and, as a direct result, chaos ensued (on the relative scale of a marathon, anyway). How about holding the kids responsible for the havoc they created? I'd almost suggest that we hold the parents responsible, but I think that is the problem: The parents are always taking responsibility for their kids actions and, therefore, the kids never learn responsibility.

When it comes to things like censorship and such, I'm sick of hearing the cries of conservative mothers saying "think of the children.... won't someone please think of the children?!" You know what? One thing I distinctly remember about being a teenager is being more fully aware of the things being censored than the people doing the censoring. Every word I heard that was bleeped on television was a word I knew and, likely, used. Let's stop fooling ourselves that, by sheltering kids from stuff we feel is inappropriate, we can make them the kid we want them to be. They're gonna find out.... and they're gonna find out a lot sooner than you want them to! I must have been in kindergarten or first grade the first time I called my brother a "fucker". I didn't know what it meant or even where I learned it, but I knew it was what people said when they were angry. Had someone told me that this was an inappropriate word, then - possibly - I wouldn't have used it.

Kids (teens, in particular) aren't as innocent as we think they are. Once we as a society realize that, then maybe we can start having kids be more responsible and stop letting them get away - sometimes literally - with murder.

The House

The realtor finally managed to get us an appointment to walk through the house (See the post from about a week ago). It's actually even nicer than we thought and the current price is $50,000 lower than their initial asking price. It's apparent that the couple has put a lot of work into the home and they wanted to try to capitalize on it.

In short, it's a little two-bedroom with a nicely finished basement. Hardwood floors throughout with an unfortunately small kitchen. In fact, all of the rooms are pretty small, but the fact that it is on three floors adds to the size substantially. There is a small yard in front, on the side and in back with heavy foliage all around the property. It's a stucco house, which irritates me to no end, but I guess it could be worse.

Marie doesn't like the fact that the laundry room is in the basement, but I believe that's pretty typical of older houses. Moving into that house would mean some serious lifestyle changes that, ideally, I would like us to make, but I don't know if we'll be able to handle it all at once.

For example, Marie-Pierre and I watch a lot of television. This is not something about which I am particularly proud, but it's the case. Also, even though we said when we got married that we'd never eat in front of the TV, we do so virtually every night. In the new house, there wouldn't be enough room in the main living area for the TV because the room is small and has a substantial fireplace. There would simply not be enough room for a TV as well. This means that the TV would need to be in the basement living area. Now, this would either force us to watch less television or we would end up spending most of our free time in our basement, which seems like such a shame. I'd obviously prefer the former, especially since we basically live in a basement now and we'd be wasting all of that nice landscaping.

Also, Marie does most of the laundry (OK... she does all of the laundry and most of the ironing) so it'd be a real hassle to haul the dirty clothes down to the basement from the 2nd floor and then haul all of the clean stuff way back upstairs. Theoretically, this problem would be solved by watching less television and doing laundry slowly throughout the week instead of once a week or once every other week. But, just like above, I'm not so sure we'd stick to that.

There is other stuff, but the last down-side is that there is no air conditioning. Now, I never had an air conditioner until I moved in with my roommates in University. Also, people lived for centuries without it. However, I like having it and Marie thinks it is a necessity. We'll see how that pans out.

In general, we liked the place (Marie even said that she was "falling in love" with it). However, I think we like it more for what it looks like than for its practical appeal. No matter how good a home looks, it's not worth much if it doesn't fit the lifestyle of it's occupants.

Vandals! Thieves! Crooks!

It may come as a surprise from the title, but today's post is not about politicians.

I went to take Maggie out for her morning walk only to find our doormat had been moved significantly. While I was thinking the words "I wonder how that...." I noticed that our bike rack that we have on our porch had been moved to the other side. I knew instantly that something was stolen, so I looked over and - sure enough - there was only one bike there.

It turns out that Marie's bike was stolen. Mine, oddly, was still there, though on closer inspection I discovered that it had significant damage. Fortunately it's all repairable/replaceable.

Here's what I think happened...

We park the bikes in the bike rack rear-end-in so that we can lock the rear tires to the bike rack. This is so people can't remove the front tire and steal the rest of the bike. We use one of those big-honkin' cables made specifically for bikes to lock them to the bike rack. It looks like they pulled on the bikes to get them out and - possibly - tried to disassemble the bike rack, only to realize that it wouldn't buy them too much. So, they somehow managed to cut through the cable and pulled Marie's bike out, but only after having made mine unrideable (which, I assume, is why it was still there). Not that Marie's was rideable because the seats (which had been stolen on Easter morning) were not on the bikes!

Anyway, the tire on my bike has been disconnected from the frame, which is repairable, but will require adjustments that I'm not capable of doing (Am I?). They also managed to rip apart the wires for my odometer/computer, but that's the least of my worries at this point.

Marie called the Police while I took the dog out and, not too surprisingly, they were neither surprised nor really cared. I guess I understand. I mean, they probably had a lot of crime last night and ours is just one bicycle. Still, we're going to file a report tonight when Marie gets back from work. We'll also see if the guy two houses down that has video of the street may have those pieces of sh..... I mean.... the criminals on his tapes.

There is one thing about this that makes me laugh... We bought Marie's bike for about $100 at Target several years ago. The bike they left behind, my Fuji Supreme, is worth about three times that and is fewer than two years old. Ha HA! Take that you thieving garbage!

(P.S. I just have to mention that the spellchecker on blogger.com found the word "doormat" above and suggested that I change it to "Toronto". Take that you theieving garbage! ;)

Marie's Immigration Update

Yesterday Marie-Pierre told me she sent my blog address to Anna in England (Hi, Anna!), which made me self-conscious enough to proof-read everything I had written. While doing so, I realized that I implicitly promised an update on how things went when we crossed the border for Nicole's wedding, but I've failed to deliver on that promise.

So, here it is....

When we went to Cincinnati for the wedding, we arrived at the airport with plenty of time (as MP and I are notorious for doing), which turned out to be fortunate. We went through US Customs and Immigration at the Montreal airport and - as expected - Marie was given the 3rd degree about why she still had her Green Card. So, we explained the situation - again - to US Immigration. When we explained that she tried to give up her Green Card at the US Consulate, he basically said "Yeah, they do that sometimes" and suddenly became very helpful. So I asked what we needed to do to make it so we didn't have trouble at the boarder every time we crossed and he indicated that we needed to go wait in the Immigration office (there was no line, by the way) and fill out a form.

So we waited for about ten minutes (did I mention there was no line?) and finally a guy comes out and tells us that they're having trouble finding the form and that they'll be with us soon. After a little while the guy calls us up and asks Marie to fill out the form. On one section she needs to describe why she is no longer intending to live in the United States. So, she and I both assume that they need a very brief description like "Moved back to Canada" or something similar.

No.

They want just about every detail! So she adds "Bought a condo and husband and I have jobs" (or something like that). The guy still wasn't happy with that! We started joking with each other that this sounds like a break-up letter: "It's not me, it's you. We can still be friends. I think you love me more than I love you". For Pete's sake!

So, in the end, she finally gave up her Green Card (which had been expired for a couple years anyway) and is officially "just" a Canadian Citizen.

I know someone famous! *Doh!*

In the Spring of 1999 I did my student teaching at Robert's Middle School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. My cooperating teacher's name was Brian Ebie. He was very well liked by the students; so much so, in fact, that I had a hard time with them because no matter what I did I wasn't as much fun as Mr. Ebie.

Well, obviously I wasn't anywhere near as much fun as Mr. Ebie because apparently a student was having sex with him soon after I graduated! Here is the story. The strange thing is that I probably know who this girl is. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know for sure who she is, but I do have a strong suspicion her first name starts with "A" and ends with "y".

Here's my story...

Brian and I had very similar interests, but everything about him was bigger and better. I wanted to be a music teacher, he was a music teacher. I had a Apple laptop, he had a better Apple laptop. I am mildly tall and have thin dark hair and a goatee, he is taller with fuller dark hair and a big goatee. I am generally likeable, he was loved by all. We were even both members at different Disciples of Christ churches. I think you get the pattern here.

Well, one day he was going in to teach class and was having some problem with his laptop (I honestly don't remember what it was) so I offered to run some diagnostics on his machine and he cautiously accepted. Had he just said "Sure! Thanks!" then I wouldn't have been suspicious, but his hesitation made me curious. But, I didn't want to get into anything like finding his secret pr0n stash while I was working at a Middle School, so I let it go. As I was running diagnostics on his hard drive, I saw a bunch of JPEG files in a directory called "My Girls" that was buried way down deep inside other folders, giving the impression that he didn't want casual browsers to find it (I think it goes to show how odd I found this discovery because I remember the name of the folder but not the problem I was trying to fix). Anyway, my curiosity got the better of me and I looked at some of the photos in this folder. Not too surprising were photos from the internet of some young, pretty, female movie stars in various states of dress, all of which would be considered somewhat normal for movie stars on covers of magazines and such. What was far more surprising were the photos of other young women. There were photos of some students I didn't recognize as well as some that I did because they were his current students! And, yes, at least one photo existed of the girl I suspect was his prey. Mind you, all of the photos I saw - if viewed out of this particular context - would have been considered completely normal. But having them all together buried as they were.... it was curious to say the least.

Anyway, I didn't say anything to anyone because, well, there was nothing explicit there. In fact, it was the implicit meaning of such a directory with such photos that made me remember the situation.

So, there it is. The one famous person I know. How embarrassingly sad.

Is it time to move?

Between Marie's new job and the fact that it only took her less than a week to get plowed over by a semi, we are looking at moving to the other side of town; Ville St-Laurent, specifically. We were driving around the area and - quite accidentally - came upon this house.


We thought it was pretty cute and we're going to look more into it. I really don't like the idea of selling our current place, though. Not neccesarily due to any sentimental connection to it, but just because I know it's going to be a stressful headache.

Anyway, I only mention it because I'm sure there will be more on this topic in the coming weeks/months.

Marie and Richard's Terrible-Horrible-No-Good-Very-Bad-Day!

Yesterday was a very bad day in my family. I'll tell the stories in the order in which they happened, not the order in which I found out about them.

Apparently sometime around noon my Uncle Dick - who is visiting my grandmother in Kent, Ohio from North Carolina - fell off of a ladder at my grandmother's house and hit his head pretty badly. In the hospital he apparently had forgotten why he was in Ohio (The wedding last weekend) as well as the fact that he had been retired for several months and that Black & Decker was moving his old plant to Mexico. In other words, the fall made him forget everything that had happened in the last few months and he wasn't remembering things he was being told. My mom says she thinks he's going to be fine, but it was a bad thing, nonetheless.

Then, around 5:00 PM, I get a call from Marie saying that she was in a car accident on her way home from work. She wasn't injured, just shaken up. Apparently this trucker from Indiana was in the left lane and Marie was in the center lane. The truck didn't see her there and started changing lanes and hit her and then dragged her in her car for about 150 feet! And, wouldn't you know it, there was a cop car in the right lane just next to Marie! To make a long story short, the car is in pretty bad shape, but Marie is fine. We now need to find a way for her to get to work every day. Yesterday was only her fourth day at VW and she already got in an accident!

Here is a picture she took of the accident scene.



My dad said "Boy, I hope bad things don't come in threes!". So now I'm waiting for a piano to fall on my head.

Congratulations Paul and Nicole!

The wedding this weekend went very well. The groomsmen and bridesmaids listened very well and took very good directions. The one exception was the best man who was constantly drunk. I suppose he has some good qualities, but I sure didn't see them.

The bachelor's party was fun with boring parts in the middle. I must have inhaled more second-hand smoke that night than almost any other time in my life. The groom was plastered by the end of the night... so much so that he couldn't put together a sentence.

On Friday Marie and I went shopping. It was a useful, but expensive outing.

On Saturday, I took a little walk and sat in a park where I saw a deer. Then Mom and I went shopping while Marie got her hair done and such. When the time for the wedding rolled around the groomsmen did a bang-up job seating people. I marched the groomsmen in only to find out that someone had left their kid in the aisle! So we had to move them out of the way to get by. Nicole took her time showing up and then, once we were all up front waiting for her, she didn't come through the door! So there I am at the front with the groomsmen and the bridesmaids and about 75 people staring at us. It felt like we waited five minutes for her, but it was probably more like two or three.

FINALLY she comes through the door and everything beyond that went off with hardly a hitch.

Anyway, we generally had a nice time and things went pretty well. We went out with my friend Erin and her boyfriend Kris on Friday night. That was a lot of fun. I drank way too much though. I woke up at about 5 AM feeling like I had been in a gutter all night. All-in-all it was a nice little vacation.

Upcoming Wedding

So in about a week and a half I'll be performing my first wedding! My
cousin, Nicole, asked me to officiate, so I got online and got
ordained. Fortunately the state of Ohio isn't too picky, so an
ordination certificate from the "Church of Spiritual Humanism" was all
I needed to get a license to solemnize marriages. I can't help but
laugh at the irony of "Spritual Humanism". First off, in the truest
definition, humanism is decidedly not spiritual. Secondly, I feel
there is a fine line between humanism and scientism (That is to say
that most scientism-ists are likely to be humanists, though they may
not call themselves that), which is ironic because I happen to be
waging an education crusade against the problems caused by scientism!

Anyway, it should be fun. I keep trying to remind myself of two
things: 1) No one is going to remember a word I say at the wedding,
and 2) even if I screw up royally, they'll still be married. It's
been working as far as making me less nervous, but it's got the
unwanted side-effect of not trying really hard. Not that there's much
to do, I suppose. Nicole (a.k.a. "bridezilla") has just about
everything planned already.

I'm just hoping we don't have issues at the border like we did when we
went to the States for Turkey Day! When we moved to Canada
Marie-Pierre went to the US Consulate in Montreal to give up her US
Permanent Resident ("Green") Card, but the woman there refused to take
it saying "You don't need to give it back yet, so hold on to it just
in case you decide to move back".

Ok.....

So we got to Customs and Immigration and the woman sees the K-1 visa
in MP's passport and asks if she has a green card. MP presented it
and the woman had this look on her face. You know the one... the look
that says "You've just done something wrong and I'm trying to decide
if I should give you a hard time or not". I saw this happening and
interjected that we TRIED to surrender the card but we were refused.
This worked well enough as the woman said she should fill out some
form to extend her PR status, but that form requires that you're
living in the United States.

Whatever. That's what we get for being completely honest with the
government. We'll see how it goes.

The Montreal Disappointments

So I just got done watching the Habs lose in the first round of the playoffs. How sad. This is my first hockey season in Canada and our local team botches it in game six. Argh! Stupid Cam Ward and his calm, cool, collected exterior. Bah!

Well, we still have Ottawa, I guess.

MS Walk 2006

On Sunday we went with our friends Anna and Andrew from church to the MS Walk in Maisonneuve Park. The walk started out going through the Botanic Garden but we were quickly told that we couldn't take Maggie (the dog) with us. There were a lot of disgruntled doggie daddies there, so we just ended up making our own route through the part of the park where we were allowed.


There was a pretty good turnout.











Here is a picture of Marie-Pierre and Anna when we were done with the walk and waiting in line for lunch.





When everything was done, Marie and Maggie were pretty worn out. They're so cute!

Welcome to Montreal!

Since this is my first post to this blog, it would be a good idea to get you up-to-date on what's been going on since I left the United States in June, 2005 and now, May 2006. This will be mostly a pictorial entry as I have a backlog of photos I've been wanting to share but never got around to posting them.

I want to apologize in advance as all of these photos were taken with a camera phone and then strewn haphazardly up on this blog. Please be gentle!

On commence!


I moved to Montreal with my wife, Marie-Pierre in the middle of 2005. I took a job with EMC Corporation of Canada. I travel around Eastern Canada installing EMC products and integrating our hardware with the customers' environments. Some of them are very friendly.



It was such a hassle to get my old 1995 Lincoln Town Car imported into Quebec that I was very excited to finally get my Quebec license plate. It sorta made me feel like I was finally getting settled in.







When I was starting to get settled, I spent a lot of time wandering around McGill University since it's so close to where I work. I thought the School of Music was really a nice looking building and McGill is about the only place downtown where you can find an open field.




This is Tour McGill College where my office is. The first one is a picture from the East with a nice church steeple in front and the second is from the West.

It's a pretty distinct building with the pyramid on top.






You see some funny things when you spend as much time in airports as I do. These two golf carts in the Toronto airport ran into each other, at which point the two women in red jackets (just right of center) started arguing loudly with one another. I couldn't help but laugh!














It's always reassuring when you're on a plane that there will be enough safety devices for everyone: "Can I have another seat please?!"




Finally, I'll close with some nice scenery. The first two photos here are of Cornerbrook Newfoundland in the Fall. It was really pretty there.






































The last two are photos of Florenceville New Brunswick (Home of McCain Foods). The camera phone I used doesn't do it justice. And it was Winter, so everything was dead, but trust me it's pretty. Outside of Florenceville is the world's longest covered bridge at somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/4 mile.