Here we are, on the other side of the country.  Twelve and a half hours of travel time through five airports and three planes.  Two kids, one of which needs to be on a lap at all times.

Needless to say, we were pretty tired by the time we got here.

All-in-all, though, it went pretty well.  The WestJet crew, as usual, were very friendly and entertaining; holding our baby bottles on ice and heating them for us; entertaining us with a poetry reading of the in-flight safety briefing, and generally looking after us.  They even bent the rules for us a bit to get us a seat for the baby’s seat (gotta love aircraft-approved carseats), even if it was only available for one of the flights.

As nice as they made the flight, I’m still not looking forward to the return flight.  No amount of friendliness on their part can overcome the grumpiness on my part from flying with kids.

In the course of my employment, I am regularly exposed to classified information.  Before I was allowed to look at anything remotely classified, I was informed, in no uncertain terms, of the importance of properly disposing of documents, both in hard-copy and on computer media.

Even before I joined the military, when I was working on a government contract, we were required to sign a document stating that we understood the consequences of releasing, or improperly disposing of, classified information.

Although the exact level of classification of the documents isn’t listed, but Northrop Grumman and the Pentagon somehow managed to get sensitive information to a West African street market.  Of course, there’s the standard finger-pointing and deflection of blame.

The owner of the data is responsible for its destruction.

You don’t trust a third-party, asset-destruction company to remove and destroy the hard disks if they contain “sensitive information”.  Destroy them in-house.  Put them out on the test range, or in a shredder – if a city can maintain one, the Pentagon definitely can.  Don’t try to save a few bucks by reselling a hard drive containing secret documents.

In less than 36 hours, I will be (if everything goes well) in an aircraft to the other side of the country.

This is not my first time flying; not even my first time flying that distance (Victoria, BC to St. John’s, NL, a highway distance of 7403 km).  However, it will be a major first for me – my first time flying with children.

My 7-year-old stepdaughter shouldn’t be a problem; she’s flown before, and she knows how to deal with air pressure (chew some gum or suck on a candy).  Her DS should keep her occupied for most of the flight (batteries allowing), and an overnight flight should let her get some sleep.

My 7-month-old son, however, has no such advantages.  This will be his first time in flight, as well as his first time in several months where he’s held for an extended period of time.  He’s a crawler, and I’m expecting sone argument from him when it comes to staying in one place for twelve hours.

As much as I’m looking forward to getting to St. John’s, I’m not looking forward to going.  Here’s hoping for a sleepy flight.

Over at the Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood has mentioned exactly what he thinks of URL shorteners.  Oddly enough, even though I’m writing a plugin that requires the use of a shortener, I agree with him.

Shorteners, although convenient and necessary for microblogging, have a tendancy to obscure the linking structure that makes the web usable.  They add another service that goes between the browsing user and the browsed site.  Another point of failure in an already fragile system.  Someone to absorb your pagerank, add advertisements, and add delays to browsing.  And, of course, to redirect to shock sites.

And yet, with a 140-character limit to microblogging bursts, it’s often necessary to shorten URLs.  Yes, it’s a short-term gain, but what are the long-term effects?  And how long will it take us to realize them?

I, for one, will continue to microblog with shortened URLs; I doubt that my Twitter usage will significantly impact my blog’s stats.  My followers know I’m not likely to post a link to shock them, except maybe for April 1st.

I’ve decided to try my hand at WordPress plugin writing.  Although not yet publicly released, I’m currently running WPMicro on my blog.  Currently, it only announces my posts on Twitter, but I’m planning to add support for Identi.ca and other microblogging sites.

I’ve always been a fan of background music, and to that end I use MediaMonkey on my computer pretty much constantly.  Yesterday, the new version of MM was released.  Although there are apparently over 500 improvements, I haven’t seen any yet, but I’m not much of a power-user.  I pretty much use it to listen to music and sync music to my iPod.

Also, I’ve restarted using Last.FM whenever I’m listening on the computer.  It keeps track of what music I listen to, then gives me suggestions of other music, based on what others are listening to.  It will also let me know if there are any concerts nearby from my favourite artists, based on my listening history.

I was cleaning my storage closet the other day, when I found a CD containing one of my all-time favorite computer game series: the Ultima Collection.

As with the first time I played the series, I’m starting with Ultima IV: The Quest of the Avatar.  This was one of the games responsible for giving CRPGs a story, rather than a goal of “kill all the bad guys, who aren’t really doing anything, then kill the ultimate bad guy, who’s just hanging out.  On the way, you can lie, cheat, murder, and steal your way to victory”.

One huge difference between my current run-through and my first one, I’m old enough and experienced enough to understand the different game style.  My first time winning, I had to cheat, because I didn’t understand that you couldn’t lie, cheat, murder, and steal, so I’d get near my goal then lose virtue points, making the game unwinnable.

Another difference, this time I know (most of) the answers, having played most of the series at least once, so it should be an easier time through the game.

During his campaigning, President Obama said he was going to shut down Guatanamo Bay.  Some people liked this idea, some didn’t, as can be expected.

Now, he’s trying to do it.  But he can’t find anywhere to put the terrorists.  He tried to send them to Canada, but we refused.  Even his own country won’t take them.  So it looks like the inmates are stuck in Guatanamo for a while, because the American government doesn’t have the balls to take care of their own problems, and nobody is willing to take the heat for them.

After over a year of exile, living in an embassy in Sudan, Abousfian Abdelrazik is finally (maybe) allowed to return home.

Although he is a Canadian citizen, he was not allowed to fly home to Canada.  Our own security services, including CSIS and the RCMP, have cleared him of any terrorist ties, but he remains on a UN blacklist.  This has prompted our government to ignore its own agencies to refuse Abdelrazik a flight home.

Even when Abdelrazik was ordered to appear in front of the House of Commons, he was still not allowed to return to Canada.  I don’t see how they expect him to appear if they won’t allow it.  At least one letter written to the consular service came back with no helpful information.

Now, it seems that the Supreme Court has seen some reason, and ordered the government to return Abdelrazik to Canada. where the Canadian citizen can stand Canadian trial, if warranted, or be released, as our local police and security services have apparently recommended.

The foreign ministry is still reviewing the decision, to determine whether they will appeal.

My wife needed to get her eyes checked, as most people do.  Our insurance provider requires us to pay up front, then submit receipts for reimbursement, which we did.  Yesterday, my claim statement came back.

We are not able to pay the full amount of this expense because your plan covers it only up to the amount typically charged by health care practitioners for this service. Your practitioner has charged more than this amount.

WTF?  Am I now required to shop around for medical care before I get it?  Perhaps I should ask my doctors “how much are you charging?  Good.  How much are you supposed to be charging me?

I don’t know how I was supposed to know the “going rate” for an eye exam, but I definitely know now.