him.happyhippos

Aug 2, 2023 - 3 minute read

Gen Con 2023

You know how people say it’s not about the destination, but the journey? Sometimes, they’re wrong. Sometimes the journey sucks and you just want to get to where you’re going as fast as possible. That was the case for me and my friends last Wednesday, when we drove from Kitchener to Indianapolis for Gen Con, the biggest gaming convention in North America. It all started when we split into two cars.

Aug 1, 2023 - 1 minute read - Food

[2023] Best places to eat in KWC

Comfort food Crazy Canuck (new location in Downtown Kitchener!) Mark’s Carribbean The Village Eatery Malt and Barley - excellent pub style food Muya - authentic ethiopian food Arabesque - best pitas in the world Antalya - great shawarma sandwiches Korner Kitchen - big big portions Lab Street Eats Arabella Beer Park - really reasonable and tasty burgers Fireside - big portions, and a pseudo buy one get one free deal!

Oct 30, 2021 - 1 minute read - Life

All Hallows

So today was the day before halloween, and one of the things that we did with the kids was a drive through trick-or-treat. You drive your car, and roll down your windows, and the people give you candy. The kids sat in the back with their windows rolled down, held open their bags, and got candy deposited in. Strangely, they also tried to hand candy to my wife. It took us awhile before we realised that they probably thought she was a kid!

May 12, 2021 - 1 minute read - Tech

Blog now improved! But also completely the same!

If you haven’t heard, github has released a really cool feature called github actions, letting you do continuous integration right within github. The incredible thing about it is that people have built all these amazing actions that you can use to build your CI system in a plug-and-play way! One of these actions that I’ve now integrated into this very blog is a hugo deployment action. It now deploys itself as soon as I make a change, which is fantastical!

Apr 22, 2021 - 3 minute read - Food

Best places (we've found) to eat in KWC - Takeout Edition!

Since we’ve been confined to our house for more than a year, we’ve done a pretty extensive tour of several restaurants, takeout style. I decided to list them out and go through some of them in a bit of detail. What else is there to do during a global pandemic? Comfort Food Malt and Barley One of our earliest local spots, it’s remained one of our absolute favourites. Everything we’ve tried there has been fantastic, and the portion sizes are great.

Jan 20, 2020 - 3 minute read

Take your Grade 9s to work and give them a presentation

For some reason, I decided to volunteer to give a talk about software development to some Grade 9s. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. I had to think of things to keep them engaged, and I really felt when they made a connection. I also really felt when I had lost them completely - they all had phones. =/ For better or worse, my notes are below:

Jun 24, 2019 - 3 minute read

Ideas for running Retrospectives

I was asked to record a five minute video about retrospectives, and below is the text I came up with! The official scrum guide says that “the sprint retrospective is an opportunity for the team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next sprint”. If you’re just starting out with running retrospectives though, beginning your retrospectives with this goal can quickly devolve to finger pointing and complaining.

Aug 2, 2018 - 4 minute read

Gen Con 2018

It’s been five years since we’ve had a vacation without children, and I was completely thrilled to have it be Gen Con, in Indianapolis. The last time we went was in 2010, so it’s been awhile, and a lot has changed! It would probably be best to start from the beginning of the trip though. We decided to leave on Tuesday afternoon so that we could get a day to relax before the conference, which ended up being a pretty good decision.

Feb 16, 2016 - 1 minute read - Blog

Winter experiences

Part of being a parent is being able to share the things that you find joy in doing, and this past week I got a chance to help my daughter discover the wonders of winter. On Thursday, we went skating with the Grad Cell small group, and she had a blast! She didn’t end up skating on her own at all, so we had to take turns holding her up as she walked around the ice.

Dec 30, 2013 - 1 minute read - Blog

Unbiased

I’ve been having an ongoing dispute with my wife about how cute our daughter is. She insists that I am asking biased questions when I try to get opinions on how she compares to other babies. Well, this past week, I went to make a reservation at a local Chinese restaurant that we frequent, and this is the conversation that ensued: Me: Hi, I’d like to make a reservation for six adults and one baby.