Brian Hampson - Life and Other Things

I realized this a while ago, but I figured I’d finally blog about it. 

“Reservation” translates into something completely different in Chinese.

When you make a reservation at most “Western” restaurants, you can be pretty much assured that when you show up for your 1900 reservation that your table will be ready for you at that time.  You enter the restaurant, sit down, and enjoy a pleasant dining experience, without the hassle of waiting and pacing wondering when you’ll be able to sit down and spend some quality time with your dinner guests (in comparison to “waiting time” which is FAR from quality time).  You dine, relax and move on.  All quite stress free.  Nice.

When you make a reservation at “Chinese” restaurants, it seems to translate to “I’d like to reserve my spot in the waiting list for that time”.  This means that upon your arrival, the host/hostess acknowledges your presence and puts you into the queue.  Effectively you have “reserved” your spot in line, not a table. So when you arrive at 1900 for your reservation, if you’re lucky you’ll get seated at 1930 (if people that KNOW the staff don’t show up during that time).  If you’re unlucky, you’ve just missed a “seating cycle” and you could be waiting a VERY long time.  Take heart though - you’ll be ahead of the other people that are waiting that walked in.  Lucky you.

Why is this considered acceptable?  I know I don’t consider it so.  If 10 minutes has passed and I’m not sitting down, I start to let the host know of my displeasure.  I think one of the benefits of being a large Caucasian person is that they really don’t want to get you pissed off, so they do what they can to “make things work”.  Chinese clients, while apparently often unhappy, just seem to sit and fume quietly. 

Have you had this oddity happen to you?   What do you do about it?  Sit and take it, or remind them that YOU are paying (or would be if they’d get you a *##!#*%^ seat).

Long weekend coming up!  Enjoy.

Say WHAT?

Perhaps culture is defined as drug using homicidal car theft?

m’kay.

Apparently, in classic military fashion the Americans misread the name of “Iwo Jima” for the little island in the Pacific.  It became famous for the epic battle pitching 10K US soldiers against 22K Japanese.  Leaving 7000 US and 0ver 20000 Japanese soldiers dead.  It was the site of the “flag raising on Suribachi“  It was the symbol of Allied perserverance that “We will win!”, and it was misnamed.

 The correct name of the Island is “Iwo To”.  As of today, the Japanese government has gone back to the historical name of the island, despite the now historical implications of the name. 

Why not leave it?  Many other places have changed names over time.  They don’t HAVE to go back to what they were “originally”

Friday June 22nd will be the 250th birthday of the man after whom our city is named.

 Happy Birthday George Vancouver!  It’s been a good quarter millenium.   You don’t look a day over 150

Well, it looks like Facebook is becoming too popular.  Like Myspace, without colours and music to make you puke, many people like to surf the hyperaddictive social networking site. All. The. Time. 

 Obviously this causes grief in a workplace environment and yesterday Facebook access became a thing of the past in our company.  Just too many people wasting too much time and bandwidth.   Killed by it’s own popularity.   Funny thing though. BECAUSE we banned Facebook, I went over last night and signed up, because now I wanted to see what it was all about.   Meh.

 It was nice that I could get in touch with some old friends from high school, but I can’t see myself using it regulary.  Now that I’ve got my profile up on facebook  (you’ll need to be a member to see it) and up on myspace.  I’ve made sure the website links  point to here, people can read about me here, see my pictures at the photoblog and keep in touch using comments or email.  I’m good.

 I wonder how long before more and more companies realize that these kind of sites are just killing productivity and in many cases even more precious bandwidth.

I have posted up the pictures from our Cub Area camp at Camp Byng, from May as well as the photos from our day hike to Lynn Headwaters Regional Park on the first weekend in June.  I hope you enjoy them!

Campfire for 200:

Cubs at Lynn Headwaters:

I saw this on Metafilter.  Good, interesting links (stolen unabashedly):

How to build and start a fire. How to build and start a fire with stone age tools. How to start a fire in an emergency. How to start a fire without matches. How to start a fire with sticks. How to start a fire with air - and possibly inspire the birth of the diesel engine. How to start a fire with ice. How to start a fire with chocolate and a coke can.

More good stuff at the Metafilter link

We had our wilderness first training on the weekend.  What an appropriate weekend it was - blustery and raining on Saturday.  You got a real feel for the basic needs of your patient while the rain is coming down on you.  This was my 5th time taking the course  It’s a Wednesday night for the CPR, and then 8 hours on Saturday and Sunday each for the various scenarios.  As scout leaders, our group agrees that we should take the course approximately every 3 years.  One thing I have found is that the number of instructors has decreased, which means a little less 1 on 1 with the instructors pointing things out to you.  The course is offered through St. John Ambulance, and if you have a group of 8 or more you can have a “private group” session which is great with our scout group since it gives the youth a chance to work and learn without the pressures of as many adults around.

 So, I am now recertified in my Standard First Aid with Wilderness and CPR-C  Always good to keep up to date!  I’ll have some pictures available soon.

Video Mods - Battlefront II video game characters laying out Foo Fighters’ DOA… Great work.

Apaprently 30,000 hours of rendering!

via www.mtv2.com

The Video

Here’s a fun view of the Electromagnetic spectrum from a fun little web comic “xkcd“

Last weekend it was time for the annual “First Weekend in June trip to MooseCamp Resort” on Rioux lake.

The weather was hot (over 30C!) and the fishing was good. We left Vancouver at 0100 on Thursday night and didn’t get home until 2000 on Sunday.

During the time we were there, we caught literally hundreds of fish between the 9 of us, and kept a few nice silvery 14″+ rainbow trout. The evening surface fly fishing was great on Saturday.

We were entertained by Loons, Eagles and Osprey. We heard a moose nearby and we saw black bears when we were on the road to and from the resort. It was an awesome time. I’ve posted up some pictures of the trip over at my photo gallery.

It looks like my new home may be here and no longer http://free-blog-site.com/dragonspeed They lost my last 2 years of blog posts.. I can’t say I’m a particularily happy man