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Warning! rant ahead!. Let me preface this by saying that I still believe that by God’s grace and help, I’ll get over this and find something to do about it. But as of now, these are some of the feelings that I need to vent out. So, here we go:

[RANT]

I haven’t been feeling quite good about everything, especially life and career directions, for a couple of weeks now. Seems that I’m not satisfied at where I am in life right now. I keep telling myself that I should be thankful for a great job, wonderful family and supportive friends, and yet there’s this sinking feeling inside that something just isn’t right, and it’s even more frustrating because I can’t really find any solution to it right now.

It starts with a seemingly endless journey in all aspects of my life. In my career, there are tons of things to improve in and being in Information Technology especially – a never-ending battle to keep in touch with the newest and greatest trends, which sometimes make me question my own skills and abilities. It seems that everyone in IT has the same skills I have and there’s no way I can keep working in IT before some young kids with brilliant minds come up and kicks my generation out the door. It’s the frustration of being a jack of all trades, but master of none. Nobody wants to hire someone like me who can do multiple things very well, and yet have no certification or am not considered an expert in one thing.

Of course management is an option for the future, but to get from where I am to management would require me to learn all the politicking and bureaucracy and all these abstract concepts and methodologies that are so hard to implement in real life, while trying to keep from being disillusioned and driven crazy by all those. The more I look at management, the more I realize how hard it is to make it to the top working in a corporate environment, and don’t feel that it’s what I want to do, especially thinking about the time it would take to get to a senior management / C level status.

Which brings me to try my own business ventures of course, and without any business background or experiences, seems too hard to accomplish. Statistics is of course against any small business owner trying to make a full time living of it, and it takes lots of time, which I don’t mind spending, except that I don’t have any *sigh* I really do want to make it on my own and spend time with my family more, but can’t seem to find a way to do it since I need to work full time to support my family. It’s a Catch-22 situation for me right now.

My dream is to be able to work my own business at what I am strong at, and make a good living of it, so I can enjoy life with my family (hey… isn’t that the dream of almost every single person on the face of the earth? :)) Accomplishing this is very hard to do, and I can’t seem to find a way to even start.

I always grew up thinking that computers and IT was what I loved to do, and was going to do for life, and yet these last few months have made me question myself, whether I’m supposed be an IT guy, whether I’m still passionate about technology and whether I’m any good at it compared to the millions of IT guys out there, plus the fact that even at a good salary like I’m earning right now, I barely make enough to support the family. Seems like I’m supporting the government with a large chunk of my paycheque everytime.

So, doing business and investing came up in the last few years, but I haven’t managed to do anlything at all with all these ideas running in my head. It’s all bottled up somewhere in my mind with no way of getting out or expressing itself. I have no idea how to market, promote or sell products, and have no capital to start up anything or invest in anything.

I guess those are the big sources of frustration in my life right now. Living has become a gigantic hamster wheel for me it seems, with me trying to get somewhere, but limited by my situation, be it time or finances. *sigh* Hope everybody else is in a better phase of their life right now, doesn’t feel good at all to be in this kinda situation.

[/RANT]

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For you lucky people in the US, Dell’s having that $750 off any laptop over $1499 deal again. Check it out here:

Dell $750 off Inspiron Laptops Deal

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Dell

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Watching people drive convertibles around the highway here in Toronto with sun pouring down on them, people driving with windows open during the summer, and people going to the beach for a suntan brought me some interesting thoughts on the culture in TO.

From a general observation, during some of the breezy summer days, lots of Canadians drive around without the AC in their car on, while most of the Asians (including myself) always have closed windows and the AC on.

I think that these points are what contribute to this major difference between Toronto and a majority of immigrants:
- Lots of immigrants come from countries where temperatures probably average around 30 degrees Celcius all year around, and are likely sick of the sun burning their skin every single day of their lives. (Generalizing here, because that’s what Indonesia is like )
- Lots of Canadians don’t get enough sun year round, because of the winter months, so once they get a chance, they cherish the sun like crazy, go to the beaches for a tan etc.

Very interesting to note, that Asian culture values skin that is very light in colour (ie. whitish) and especially the ladies try their hardest to use makeup that will make them look whiter. In contrast, North American people try to get tanned as much as possible.

Now what does that say about people? It’s that we’re never satisfied of what we have, and grass always looks greener on the other side. How true, and yet if people swap places for awhile, they’ll probably realize that that’s not always the case.

Just an observation.

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I’ve managed to borrow my little cousin’s Nintendo DS for a day, and have been playing Metroid on it for awhile. The touchpad really seems like an interesting concept for a handheld game, and yet a problem presents itself already: most of the players are going to be a younger generation, and younger generation of kids tends to lose small things like the stylus …

Luckily Metroid allowed me to select a control mode that doesn’t use the stylus. In total there’s 6 buttons (4 usual ones on the right + 2 on the sides) + the D-pad. It’s quite an interesting item to play with, but for $199 CAD, I think I’d rather spend it on a PS2 or XBox.

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Nintendo DS

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Rather slow day at the office. It appears that somehow my position is listed under the ‘Tester’ group, which is funny because I don’t seem to have many testing experiences at all

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RIP and condolences to the families of those who died during the London bombings. Cowardly acts by people who think that killing others are a solution to something.

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Well it’s official, I’m absolutely the worst guy in the world to remember to bring a camera anywhere. Here’s some proof:

- When we went to Marineland a couple of weeks ago, I was going to take the camera so I could try post some pictures on this blog. The day we went, it got left behind (or so I thought… ). Luckily my wife was better at remembering this and brought it, although the battery turned out to be dead
- Last Friday on Canada Day, we went across the street to a celebration at City Hall. I forgot to bring the camera again.
- Friday night, family event, my dad specifically asked me to bring the camera. I remembered it before we left, and somehow still didn’t bring it.
- Yesterday, took my son and wife to watch the circus across from our building, and even though I stamped it in my brain to bring the camera a few minutes before we left… yep … I left it behind

I’m not sure if I have a built in fear of cameras or something? So I guess the posting of pictures will have to be delayed for a bit until I can actually take some interesting pictures

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Just playing around with Google Earth, and found it really cool. I managed to zoom in to my condo with relative ease, and managed to place a ‘placemark’ for easy finding.

It’s amazing what technology can do these days.

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Google Earth

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Man, it’s a hassle to give a car to someone in Ontario…

The car that we’re currently using actually belonged to my wife’s brother, but he’s gone to Indonesia for good now, and the car is used by us. We’re in the process of trying to transfer the car ownership to be under my wife’s name and register the insurance under my name, since it could cut the insurance costs by almost half.

Now the problem is that the ministry of transportation doesn’t allow gifts/transfer of vehicles between siblings. Parents, grand parents, kids, grand children are ok, but not between brother and sister. So, the solution is to think of this as a sale, meaning we have to pay the taxes on such a sale. And even then, it cannot be sold for $1; it must be sold at book value.

So, in the process of trying to do this, I read the rules for selling a car, and it requires a safety certificate and emission test. Guess what? A safety certificate and emission test combined cost almost 200 bucks. Add that to the tax we have to pay, and it’s a couple grand down the drain, just to transfer the name of a vehicle from my wife’s brother to her.

Can you imagine this funny scenario? We’re driving the car for the last few months, and just to make a name change on ownership, we have to pay a couple thousand dollars to the government? *sigh*, lots of spending the next few days… just to save on insurance. Can’t wait for the days of teleportation

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Well, I managed to play around and get this site design up and running. Anybody care to critique it ?
I can’t seem to get the left navigation items to left – justify for some reason, if anybody knows how to do it, please let me know.

Update: Got it working

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