Me

I have lived in Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario, Canada because my father was in the Air Force. He and my mother live in Comox on the gorgeous Vancouver Island. Dad's Acadian and Mum came here from Jamaica in the 60's and both of them still have a bit of an accent, so it's always fun talking to them on the phone. I go back to visit them in Comox when I get the chance.

They did a good job raising us (I'm the eldest of three) despite the uncertainty inherent in military life. I'm playing with a theory that most people who grew up in that sort of environment have problems believing in permanence, and avoid close friendships for fear of losing people to the whims of fate. *shrug* brat web seems to be trying to bring army brats back in touch, so I registered and it's already brought me back in touch with some high school friends after one friend I'm in contact with put her name in.

I attended York University for a double honours in Physics and Computer Science, in the Space and Communications Sciences stream, as well as doing a couple of years of grad work in computer vision and graphics.

I was laid off from MD Space and Advanced Robotics due to budgetary cuts in computer vision and R&D, and did contract work for a small Toronto company doing image processing until I found a full time position at Nearlife doing computer vision and graphics for museum installations. Which of course laid me off after a year and a half and a huge project at MSI called Networld. I'm now working at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, doing medical imaging and GUI work.

My sister went to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver doing Psychology and Criminology and also went off to New Zealand and Australia for a Work Swap term. I'll admit to a bit of competition in seeing which one of us can travel more. :)
My brother graduated with a degree in Marketing from the University of Northern British Columbia. I tried to convince him to stay in computers, but he went his own way and is happier it seems. :) Both my siblings live in Vancouver.
I try to visit my parents every xmas and go skiing on real mountains.

I've answered a few Describe Yourself to the Netscrape threads on alt.gothic and finally got around to putting a version here so that I can keep adding to it after I kick myself for forgetting that one last thing. Look there to find out all the nitty gritty details that I feel like sharing.

Things I like

Riding my bike.

I don't like having a repetitive strain injury, but I'm linking this here because I like helping people out: RSI tips.

I'm a bit of a loner, and I love to be by myself. Living in a city of x million people makes this a bit hard to do, so I asked for advice on a mailing list and they came up with the following list of desolate places in Toronto.

High Park on overcast days
Centre Island on overcast days
Mount Pleasant Cemetery
cemetery near Royal York Subway
east end beaches
Cherry Beach
industrial sections near the lakeshore
marinas if they're open
park that touches Queen West and Dundas, west of the Starbucks that used to be Sanctuary
an arboretum (sp?) in the Riverdale area, Parliament and...something.
somewhere in the vicinity of the Eaton Centre. It's kind of a statue garden, with waterfalls, and an adjoining greenhouse, with steps going up around the waterfalls. I'm not sure if it's Trinity Square

I need to make a similar list for Boston some day, but since I live near the Charles River, I have a feeling that I'll just take some walks along it when I feel a need to get away.

This label on a box of ginseng tea struck my fancy. They claim quite a bit for their product.

Reading

I read. A lot. I own over 600 books. I tend to make New Year's resolutions of the order of "read all the books on this list". In 2009, it was the Hugo Award winners that I'd missed, back to 1990. In 2008, it was 12 years of Pulitzer Prize for Literature winners (reviews in this tagged list of posts). In 2007, it was the Newbery Award winners, one per year back to 1922 (reviews). I'm adding to that list as the new winners get announced. In 2006, it was the Man Booker Prize nominees for the year (reviews). In 2005, it was the Hugo Award Nominees for the year. In 2004, it was the Nebula Prize nominees for the year. Collected reviews.

Writing

I had a toss up between going into science and writing, and decided that I wanted to eat on a regular basis and so went into the sciences. :) I still occasionally scribble out stuff and a few get put on here every now and again. Most are inspired by people, some by situations. Some of the prose and poetry included here is unfinished, I just wanted a place where I could keep being reminded of them... so do take that into account before you flame me for offending you with my "dark angel" writings (and yes that's a quote from someone who emailed me, much to my amusement).

My Prose (have to dig up more of it some day, I never really could write well using keyboards - and when it comes to typing it in I hate most of them anyway) Includes stories and rants.

My Poetry

My LiveJournal which holds more day to day thoughts and events

Pictures

I'm uncomfortable taking pictures when people can see me, it says that I care enough about the image/scene/person to capture it for posterity. But occasionally I've decided that I need to use up the film in my camera and will go nuts. Then they sit around for ages waiting to be scanned. I picked up a digital camera and have been putting more picture up.

My Pictures

My travel diaries, where a lot of my pictures are going to end up, since I tend to take more when I'm wandering the world.

Back to my links page.