Denis Lemire's Site

Arrived back from the Catch The Wave wireless conference in Medicine Hat put together by one of Triton’s suppliers of wireless gear (Comco Technologies Inc.). It was a very well organized event, with speakers from Motorola, Allot Communications, Orthogon Systems, and more.

There was an assortment of product demonstrations as well as a Motorola training course. The conference lasted from Tuesday to Friday evening during which I stayed at the Medicine Hat Lodge. Both the event in general and the accommodations at the hotel were very enjoyable.

I had a great time meeting numerous people from various backgrounds, both technical and non-technical. Of course, and in spite of my enjoyment of the event, after three days of early mornings and late evenings it feels great to be home.

I just learned yesterday that Nathan Allen, a good friend of mine has passed away, sadly taking his own life. His funeral was today. I originally met Nathan working at my former employer (OA Group). After he left OA we got together regularly, either when he needed some help with whatever computer problem he was currently unable to solve or he just wanted to get together for a couple beers. He was an amazing guy to hang out with, he always had the biggest shit eating grin on his face, and a fun loving personally that was sure to crack me up regardless of how cynical of a mood I was currently in. The guy was consistently armed with a smart assed remark for any imaginable situation. It’s impossible for me to imagine what kind of situation he felt he was in that he couldn’t see an alternative to his demise. The guy was so fun loving any time I saw him, he had a small army of his friends always ready to help him out with whatever he needed. Regardless of whatever situation lead him to this end, he will be greatly missed.

Haven’t scribbled in this here website in way too long… If I put it off just a little bit longer it will be a year… Obviously lots has happened since the last post. I wouldn’t even know where to begin if I tried. Today marks nine months since I’ve began dating Jessie for starters. We’ve been living together now for at least four or five months… All is going great on that front… Things are going good at work… I believe Triton is on the verge of exploding in size if all involved play their cards right. Guess we’ll see where things go from here if I find the time to write…

Ever have one of those days where you wish you hadn’t bothered to crawl out of bed?

First thing in the morning I had to go to St. Albert to install two additional computers to an existing network. Let me just say that I’m now of the opinion that any city that names every single one of there streets should be destroyed and rebuilt. No questions asked. How in the hell is one to know where Joe street is from Big Building avenue? Its completely ridiculous. Needless to say I got very lost…

Granted its not like I had a sense of direction to begin with, but ending up passing through an entire city once or twice trying to find a road that according to the map you printed earlier exists is absolutely enough to irritate someone. After being lost for a bit and somehow ending up somewhere near Sturgeon (don’t ask) I got stuck in a ditch in a failed attempt to turn around.

Of course I’m also out of free AMA calls. So the dude on the other end of the cell says he’ll have a tow truck for me in about forty minutes. I mutter some familiar profanities and even learned some new ones cursing under my breath as I inhaled the toxic fumes of a cigarette leaning against my truck on the side of the road.

About ten minutes later some guy came by, said he lived not five minutes away, had a rope and could likely pull my sorry carcass out of the ditch. He came back five minutes later, and succeeded as he had planned. Awesome! I thanked the man, called off the tow truck and was one my way.

After getting lost a little more into St. Albert I finally found the office I was supposed to do the work for. I dragged all their equipment into the office and proceeded to do the three to four hours of work required.

Needless to say when I was done I was looking forward to nothing more then heading back home. Thats when I reached into my pocket and noticed my keys were gone. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out where I had left them. AAARGH!!!

Had a get together with a few ex-OA groupies yesterday. Drank way too much… My head hurts… In spite of my massive hang over I managed to do some more upgrades to my here network. My main workstation has been upgraded to a faster 20 GB Maxtor hard drive and the 20 GB from it has been moved to this machine. Now this machine has a whole lot more breathing room for sharing my MP3’s and videos across the network. Very nice.