ChrisBellini.com » Life

on this day…

Chris — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:52:03 +0000

...in:

1640: Portugal regains independence after 60 years of Spanish rule.
1783: Charles and M.N. Roberts ascend 2,000' in a hydrogen balloon.
1821: Santo Domingo (Dominican Rep) proclaims independence from Spain.
1822: Dom Pedro crowned emperor of Brazil.
1887: Sino-Portuguese treaty recognizes Portugal's control of Macao.
1913: Continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford (1 car every 2.5 minutes).
1918: Iceland becomes independent state under the Danish crown.
1919: Lady Astor sworn-in as 1st female member of British Parliament.
1929: BINGO invented by Edwin S Lowe.
1934: Sergei Kirov Josef Stalin's collaborator, assassinated in Leningrad.
1935: Woody Allen was born.
1939: Lee Trevino was born.
1936: Bell Labs tests coaxial cable for TV use.
1940: Richard Pryor was born.
1945: Bette Midler was born.
1947: Aleister Crowley, occultist, died at 74.
1958: Central African Rep made autonomous member of French Commonwealth.
1959: 12 nations sign a treaty for scientific peaceful use of Antarctica.
1959: 1st color photograph of Earth from outer space.
1973: Australia grants self-government to Papua New Guinea.
1973: David Ben-Gurion founding father of Israel dies in Tel Aviv at 87.
1987: Digging begins to link England and France under the English Channel.
1988: Benazir Bhutto named 1st female PM of a Moslem country.
1989: East Germany drops the communist monopoly from its constitution.
1989: USSR Pres Mikhail S. Gorbachev meets Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.
1990: British and French workers meet in English Channel's tunnel.
1990: Iraq accepts Bush's offer for talks.
1990: Lithauania, Estonia and Latvia hold their 1st joint session.
1991: Inaugural AIDS awareness day and the Ukranian people vote for independence.

Oh, and in 1976, I showed up on this planet. Happy Birthday to me

the excuse

Chris — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:08:06 +0000

For those still following my online ramblings and unsure about my recent whereabouts, I'll shed some light. Rest assured, I'm still vertical and breathing. I'm in the midst of finally wrapping up a freelance gig that's gone in every direction but forward, more often than not. Thankfully, I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I don't wanna jinx it and cause a deluge of scope-killing feature requests to bugger up my luck.

Gimme two seconds, folks

i remember running virusscan for dos from a floppy on my 486

Chris — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:32:08 +0000

Today was my last day with Desire2Learn. The past year and a half was a good experience, but I was presented with a stellar opportunity that I couldn't overlook. Starting this coming Tuesday (Monday's the August Civic Holiday), I will be working for McAfee as a Software Engineer in their Waterloo office. This should be a great experience and I'm totally looking forward to it.

And to all of those people who always seek my advice as to which antivirus product they should use, what do you think I'll be recommending?

a retching good time

Chris — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 15:35:13 +0000

Here's another excuse for a lack of posting - a GI bug that left my innards on the outside. That was a gross description wasn't it?

I'm feeling better (thanks for asking) and once I clear up a few side gigs, I'll return with more wonderful insights about the technical world and how it impacts our lives. Perhaps I'll even unleash an album review or two. Until then, I'll be firing up the MySQL Query Browser while sipping the champagne of gingerales. Stay tuned.

what is love? baby, don’t hurt me. don’t hurt me. no more.

Chris — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:37:39 +0000

Today's the day that Hallmark, florists and jewellers inform you that if you do not give them money in exchange for goods to give to your significant other, then you are a horrible person. Should you happen to not have a significant other, then you are made to feel left out of the "fun". Hollywood has had their hand in dictating the expectations of the day as well - you don't want to be the shlub that the audience hates because you didn't live up to the Valentine's Day expectations, making your actions on the other 364 days of the year neglectable.

In the past, I've posted things about why I love Dena and the usual stuff that many people can identify with. This year, I'd like to share something that really touched my heart. For the Christmas holidays, Dena went to visit her family in Crystal Falls. One day while she was IM-ing me from her parents' computer, she types this:

I need to update this computer. What is the latest version of firefox?

Now I love my wife, but a technical person she ain't. In university, I tried to no avail to explain to her the benefits of copy 'n' paste. She would have none of it. She preferred to re-type if need be - she has since come around once she began her first job out of university and realized that retyping 200-word portions of legal documents might actually be worse than a quick CTRL+C and CTRL+V. So for her to immediately want to update her parents' web browser was a nice to hear, but not a total shock, since she installed updates and patches on her work computer. Yet, she then wanted to tackle an expired anti-virus subscription:

I need to update the AVG here as well. Got a link for that?

Following a reboot, she sends me this message:

This computer has so much shit on it that it's so slow. But everything is updated. What about skype now? 2.5.0.151 is the version on it now.

My wife is an updating machine. She realizes the benefit of keeping software current. We're on the same wavelength. And that, folks, is real love

happy 2007

Chris — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:50:42 +0000

Happy 2007, people!

I celebrated it by falling asleep shortly after 10PM. When you spend the holidays alone, all the holiday hoopla seems boring.

I'll remember 2006 as the year:

I got a new job.
My mom died.
Dena and I bought a house.
I started to play hockey again.

I don't have any vices that are bad for my health that require a resolution, I don't think. Yet if I had to put together a plan for the 2007, it would be:

Get up-to-speed on home handy work skills.
Get Dena a proper engagement/wedding ring somehow.
Be nicer to people that deserve it.
Tell off some people that deserve it.
Be more sociable.
Continue to wrack my brain to come up with a killer app.
Relax a little bit.

C'mon 2007.