It’s been a few months since I’ve posted. Work is keeping me quite busy these days.

I bought some nice ceiling fans for my condo. So much cooler now! No more morning sweats! Not much else is going otherwise.

My job is great, although I can’t tell you what I do. It’s pretty cool stuff

Weather Forecast: A slight cool down, but still nice and mainly sunny.
Mood: Happy

It’s been a while since I’ve posted to this blog. The seasons changed, and finally. It’s great to announce I’ve taken up a role with RIM (Research In Motion) you know, the Blackberry(tm) people who make awesome devices I don’t know what this means for my KDE development but we’ll see. Other than that, there hasn’t been a whole lot else going on which I guess is ok.

It’s great to finally get back into the world of work and to move into a new direction!

Weather Forecast: Above normal temperatures, can we hope for no more snow?
Mood: Pretty good I’d say

I do not want the Ontario Liberals slamming a huge tax increase on myself, having my expenses rise at least 8% not including food, gas and more. I am inclined to vote Green in protest of this increase. Right now I have been unemployed since late April, due to restructuring at my old company. I cannot keep up with these rising costs as others are also in this situation. It’s bad enough they won’t put an exemption on funerals, how disgusting!

While I Identify as a Liberal (a Blue liberal/Red Tory). Infrastructure crosses all political stripes I just recently sent this email to all the levels of government and new transit authority:

Honorable MP Peter Kent,
Honorable MPP Peter Shurman
Regional Chair Bill Fisch
CEO & President Mr. Robert Prichard:

Hello,

I would like to know what is the status of the subway project and if funding
is going to be approved. The Provincial government has already given approval
for the EA and I understand the Federal government wants to restrict spending
further.  One should ask the question, do we do nothing and continue to create
more gridlock? We already have a huge transit infrastructure deficit and this
isn’t going to get better as more people move into the GTA.

While I am aware of the LRT/Transit City proposals/approvals, these will help
other areas around Toronto/York Region. These do not help the centre areas of
the GTA with the core along Yonge Street. It makes no sense to me to put more
focus on areas that do not have a high core density target while Yonge Street
does.

I am not sure if the various levels government have shared their master plans
to get a better understanding of why we’re drowning in gridlock but something
needs to be done.

I urge all of you involved to work together and let’s get a transit system the
GTA can be proud of. Sometimes it takes some pains in spending to build a
better future and seeing my tax dollars fund these kinds of projects that will
last well into the future and have a return on investment, create new
businesses along such projects and more. Federal deficit or not.

Thank you,

Shawn Starr.

Weather Forecast: Unseasonably cool, humid this weekend and storms.
Mood: Not exactly happy at the moment, anyone want to hire me?

Firstly, happy new year to everyone! I’ve been busy the last few months.

With governments finally waking up to the fact we’re in deep trouble, maybe we should remind them they left us in this mess by deferring spending over the years and now the hens have come home to roost.  It’s sad to see. Every time I go into Toronto, it looks more and more run-down, from leaking subway stations with puddles, crumbling roads with potholes that look like mini craters to that horrible musty smell.

It is refreshing to see the provincial Ontario government finally stop this NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome. If there’s any wonder why we have so much gridlock, why our transit systems are inadequate it’s because of these people blocking progress. I applaud the Ontario Liberals for reducing Environmental Assessments to 6 months instead of the years that allowed NIMBYs paralyze this province’s progress forward.

Weather Forecast: Winter returns, flurries tonight
Mood: It could certainly be better

It’s a sad day in this country. The Governer General has set a new dangerous precedent. A sitting minority government can now prorogue the House and subvert the will of the House via the Governer General.

Not only has this fiasco set a bad precedent, it will now reopen the unity of this country. Perhaps it’s time for the East to split from the West. We really don’t want republican views pushed onto us or having a PM and a party that are destroying our very foundation this country was built on.

And to those who voted conservative in Ontario, think about it real hard. Is this the Canada you want? I want the progressive conservatives back I want my country back.

For those who don’t know. We had rebellions in Ontario and Quebec for “Reponsible Government”, and today, Harper via the Governer General have undone what was fought for.

I am truly shamed of this country today.

Weather Forecast: Cold with flurries
Mood: Weeping for this country

Well, our social conservative government decided to drop the writ a few weeks ago and it’s not looking good for my Liberal party. I do hope we can stave off a majority government of harper because he’ll turn this country upside down given the chance. I should note however, I consider myself a blue liberal (Red Tory). I agree with one thing from harper and that is more autonomy for provinces.

I plan to be in my new condo this month finally, there’s been lots of delays and I’ve been lazy in moving too. But it has to happen, the time is now.

I bought a Quad Core machine, I’m finally into the 64bit age!

I bought a nice couch and chair with footrest, handled different paperwork for dealing with the warranty of condo, looked for additional defects in the condo (found a few). The progress to move into my new place is a slow process but I should be in my new digs by next month. I’ll have some pictures of the place.

I want to talk to you about the ’sex scandal’ going on in New York but, I want to discuss this more in terms of putting things into perspective. You see, when two grown adult people consent for sex with money everyone goes crazy. Yet, when a sixteen year old marries a 50 year old, that’s just fine, its perfectly legal up here to do. I really think us North Americans should be shameful in our view of what we think ‘moral values’ should be.

Sure, I’ll hear the same excuse from people saying well if we legalize prostitution our society will become immoral and crap. I’ll tell you whats immoral, what’s immoral when you hear about companies protecting their profits to the detriment of other people due to greed.

I think Democracy is failing because regular people don’t run for office because ‘The System’ is in place and nobody can change it. You have to be a lawyer to create laws because nobody else understands them anyway.  If I was to ever run for office, my ideas would certainly rock the boat, but they’d bring reality back into the world where politicians today pander too much. We really need to make government really fear the public at all times because if we don’t, corruption settles in.

For a start here’s what we need done and something I’d strongly push for:

• Recall legislation for: regional government representatives (mayor, councilors), provincial MPPs, Primers, federal MPs, Prime Minister (we’ll figure out how much that costs, but democracy shouldn’t come down to cost)
• A better check and balance for politicians when they make decisions forcing the representative to provide concrete reasoning for their decision. Their decision should try to reach a consenus with all parties involved. Barring none, binding abritration should be done. There needs to be especially better ways of handling lobbying and blackmail by stakeholders.
• We need laws that make sense on a society level not religious level and laws that do not degrade society.
• We need to redo the Canadian constitution so this childish behavour of Federal to Provincial, Provincial to Municipal politics ends and ends once and for all. I am ashamed of Canada for our inability to progress further like Europe has due to our outdated structures of government.  We should all blame ourselves for this mess.
• We need to redo how political parties are done and function. No more party whips, no more backbenchers, no more inner circles. They function in this way as a result of how our constitution functions. This needs to be changed.

Our biggest problem in this country is our political and consitutional system in place. They have created a climate of apathy. We need people and businesses to have more say in how this country runs not just the people we elect to represent us, because they can’t be trusted enough. It’s time to make politics function again.

Weather Forecast: Light snow ending mid-morning
Mood: Frustrated

You know, I don’t know what is with Obama supporters. It’s like some big cult. He will be made mincemeat by John McCain if he wins the Democratic nomination. Clearly Thursdays debate was won by Hillary. Obama is way too left for a democrat he should join the NDP (New Democratic Party) up in Canada which is just as left as his ideas.

America will once again pick the wrong nomination and lose the Whitehouse.

Obama YES WE CANNOT ‘08

Weather Forecast: Sunny
Mood: Puzzled

Well, after trying several times, I managed to score three shots of the moon. Without a tripod, it’s rather difficult to hold still when it’s -10C outside, but here you go

Well, It’s been a few months since I last posted. So, why not now. A lot has been going on between then and now. Yesterday was an anniversary that I didn’t celebrate. The loss of my dad still hurts, it always will. But, life goes on as he’d want.

We’ve had record snows this winter. More snow than we’ve seen in over 10 years. This is a winter that really feels and looks like winter, I hope to meet some of these weather geeks I chat with soon, I want to be on cloud9

I finally picked up the keys to my condo and I really like it. I will post some pictures soon. Don’t worry. I’ve been looking at getting a couch and a chair, there’s absolutely so much work I have to do before I can actually move into the place which won’t be till April at least.

Did I mention I dislike walking into an Ikea store? You can’t escape! It’s like a maze and they design the place to force you to look at everything. So, if you happen to venture into one be prepared to navigate the maze.

I’ve been also quite busy with the KDE team on Plasma. Having gotten wind that people in Environment Canada have been watching my Weather Applet. I am driven make this thing kick ass once some of the Plasma API is hardened. This will make for a nifty useful program. Stay tuned on this or see my KDE developer blog

Weather Forecast: Flurries ending, clear and cold, Enjoy the total solar eclipse tonight!
Mood: Reflecting