Sean Gursky: Pioneer on the Internet

My Posts Returned

By Sean | August 13, 2009

In March my Project 365 photos, custom images and blog posts were eaten by 1and1. It took several weeks to go through the grieving process. I still find the missing images on my three years of Project 365 a sore spot, but eventually I came to terms that my blog posts would be gone but I would pick up the pieces and start again.

There was the possibility that the site could be recovered, even in part, but I did not want to get my hopes up that it would play out. Thankfuly, with the assistance of a few co-workers (Keith and Brent) they got to work on recovering posts through Yahoo’s web cache.

October 05 - January 06 Posts (Take 2) What followed was work that spanned several months as basic HTML pages were parsed with PHP and formatted into an XML document that WordPress could easily import. I understand the words but the process baffles me. It started with using Yahoo’s API to save the pages and then put them through the ringer to come out shiny and clean on the other end.

I am not sure how many posts I had over the years, I thought it number over 500, however, the magic that Keith and Brent worked was able to salvage over 180 going as far back as my first post in October 2005.

I have relied on my blog archive to tell me what I was doing this time last year or to remember a specific concert review. It wasn’t until those posts were gone that I realized how much this site meant to me, and that is why I will continue to update it.

Import WordPress

1. Importing post Velvet Mafia…
2. Importing post Studying Hard…
3. Importing post B-a-n-a-n-a-s…
…
182. Importing post My Right Keys…
183. Importing post My Not So Perfect Storm…
184. Importing post My Music Radio…

All done. Have fun!

This was a beautiful sight to behold. A huge thank you goes out to Keith and Brent for their effort on this, because without them Pioneer on the Internet would still be a shadow of its former self.

My Phonetically Small World

By Sean | August 11, 2009

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Small World
The Internet got a little bit smaller for me on Monday when Sean Gerski made a tweet about finding me online. The spelling on the last name is a little different, but phonetically we share the exact same name. Needless to say I awoke Tuesday morning to quite the surprise in my Inbox!

We are now e-friends and will be plotting to take over the world as only similar in name people often do.

Tube Steak Challenge
Last Friday my Tube Steak Challenge took another leap forward.

The Ice Dragons celebrated our summer hockey season with a wrap party at Gord’s where beer and food was provided from the team pot of our subs. Even though my method for remembering the number of dogs I consumed with the caps of beer bottles didn’t work out as planned I reached double digits before the end of the month.

I will be joining Gord and Tyler on a hike in the wilderness later this week up to Landslide Lake and there are hot dogs on the menu so I hope to return from the trip and have a a few more tubed steaks under my belt.

My Identity Crisis

By Sean | August 7, 2009

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What is in a name? When it comes to marketing a brand or an identity the consensus is to come up with something and stick with it. Over the last few months I have been struggling with my online identity, but it has recently come to a head. Ask someone what my Last.fm profile name is, chances are three suggestions will come back. That is not how you stay brand consistent.

In 2005 I registered seagurs.com and used that as my online profile, however the use of the name was very limited. Besides the website it was only used as my Gamertag on Xbox360 and, most recently, on the Playstation PSN network. Could I really be identified as ‘seagurs’ elsewhere? Would it be a more appropriate and identifiable online identity than I realized?

For almost every other site or account I would go with ‘gursky’. It is an obvious nickname, usually unused when I register it on other sites. When Facebook launched vanity URL’s for user profile pages I began to wonder how I should be identified online. Would I go with ‘seagurs’, ‘gursky’ or something else? In the end I decided to go for something generic, but accurate name and claimed ‘seangursky‘.

The purpose of this post, and the reason behind this whole identity crisis, began when I was looking to create my custom URL on Flickr. Instead of being identified by numbers and letters I could use a name. I have been a member of Flickr for as long as I had a domain name but never knew they released custom URL’s. I was late to the gold rush but I had the intentions of registering ‘gursky‘. However, someone with a screen name not of gursky beat me to it.

What was I to do? This is Facebook all over again, do I go with ‘seagurs’ or ‘seangursky’ or something else? Ultimately I went with ‘seangursky‘ and began to wonder if I made the right choice.

I can change my Flickr screen name to reflect my custom URL, but that feels like I am giving up on an identity battle, however it is confusing to have a screen name different from the custom URL. Facebook, Flickr and Last.fm all have usernames that cannot be changed; but only last.fm is without my given name and just stands as ‘gursky’.

Only a few sites will allow me to change my name (like Twitter), but I guess the question is this: If the site allows it, should I move my identity over to ‘seangursky’? Or should there be a conscience split where social networking sites have one name but the rest don’t? Is it easy to define what is a social networking site and what isn’t?

I am at a crossroad. No matter which direction I go there will be old left overs (Xbox 360 and PSN under ‘seagurs’ and Facebook, Flickr and Last.fm under variations of my name) but which path is the right one to take?

I do not have an attachment to ‘seagurs’. It is a convenient combination of my first and last name, but is that enough to making it more prominent? Is the full name necessary? I have come to grips that I will never be the only ‘gursky’ online so perhaps this is how I can separate myself from them?

My Scandinavian Dog

By Sean | August 4, 2009

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The Heritage Festival is a wonderful yearly event where you can experience other cultures through dance, food and history. With all of these cultural pavilions around me and $20 worth of tickets at my disposal to try something new, I could have eaten new food for the whole day. But I go and have a lefse dog from the Scandinavian tent.

It tasted like a normal hot dog, not the BBQ or flame roasted style I am familiar with. However, I can now say that my Tube Steak Challenge has expanded me as a person and cultured me a little more on how snouts and entrails are presented in other countries.

Heritage Festival: A great place to try a different type of hot dog.

My Hairy Muse

By Sean | August 2, 2009

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I try to avoid posting the ‘flavor of the week’ videos but this one really stood out to me.

On November 9, 2007 Christoph Rehage set off to walk across China. While on his journey he photographed his hair and beard growth over the year (which is documented here). He put in over 4,500KM solely on foot and put together a fantastic video of his hair growth over that time.

There are numerous ‘photo a day’ videos but this one really stood out to me because of how creative the pictures were, the soundtrack he used and how unruly he looked after a year.

I can’t help but feel a sense of deep respect for what Christoph accomplished with this video. The walk he did alone is worth being commended for but the artistic result is amazing. I have photographed a month of growing a playoff beard and have nearly three years of doing ‘photo a day’ and I can only hope to capture something as remarkable as that with these challenges.

Watch the video here, you won’t regret it.

My Battlestar Box

By Sean | July 30, 2009

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I kind of love Battlestar Galactica. Don’t let my low post count on the topic of the show deceive you, this new version of seagurs has a fraction of what I had written before. Even though the show ended 133 days ago that won’t stop me from writing about it again, or when The Plan is released.

After the show ended in March rumors began about what the complete series would be like, when it would be released and what special features would be included. Information was slow to come out, but little by little an idea of how it would all look began to form. Soon box art and a release date was announced. I debated about whether I needed a box set of something I already owned 90% of own DVD, but I am a consumer whore and caved.

Even though the cost was high, I justified it to myself by believing this was reasonable value for a complete series on BluRay. I did not regret my decision, however, I did wonder if it was worth while. I read about what was included in this complete series and felt more confident in this purchase.

Yesterday the series was delivered to me and all concerns I had were washed away; it is gorgeous. This weekend I plan on spending many hours watching the extended Daybreak finale, special features and watching my favorite moments (Exodus Pt. 2 and Crossroads Pt. 2 come to mind) in glorious high definition and digital sound.

So say we all.

My New Dog Year Challenge

By Sean | July 29, 2009

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The second edition of the Tube Steak Challenge is well under way. Our trip to Lac La Biche last weekend saw my second annual Challenge go from zero to eight in a matter of days. At this rate I will destroy my previous years record, but I know the winter months will see a drought of snouts and entrails so I will enjoy this gluttony for now.

My Ocular Inspection

By Sean | July 24, 2009

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It has been fifty two days since my eye surgery and things have been fairly consistent for the last few weeks. I am at a point now where my vision is strong enough that I do not have ‘functional fuzzy’, I can do my job without issue and do not have problems reading most text. The changes to my eyes have been subtle, and if there are improvements I may not notice it right away.

I was in a world of blur for several weeks and I thought I would notice the day where everything came into focus but it was so gradual that I barely noticed a change. It was like I woke up one morning and I realized that the problems I had from a week ago were gone. Things came into focus. I could see the building across the road, the font on my computer screen and the fine print text from a poster at work.

I have noticed that in low light situations reading is a little difficult, but that is the exception. I have not done night driving in a few weeks so I do not know if I will have halo’s, shadowing, or difficulty reading street signs. My distance vision is strong during daylight so I would hope that would help during darkness.

I was dependent on glasses for so many years I am surprised that I have not instinctively reached for the glasses in the morning to put them on. To that, I have never caught myself moving my index finger up to my nose to adjust the position of my frames, it is almost like I forgot all muscle memory related to when I wore glasses.

My one month follow up with the surgeon was the beginning of July and my next appointment is in October. I was told to decrease the frequency of the drops every month. For July I am use Flarex and Systane Ultra three times a day and then August would be two drops and then September is one. I have not noticed a problem going from four drops a day to three. The lack of the fourth drop does not lead to dry or blurry eyes and I can only hope that the same can be said for subsequent months.

However, the last few days I have noticed a bit more ‘gunk’ in my left eye, which is not the usual type of hard ‘crusties’ you get in the morning. The few theories I have are is that the eye is getting dried out with fans on in the bedroom, it is build up from my round of drops before bed or something else is going on, in any case it is only the left eye that experiences this and it does not happen every night.

It has been a fast fifty two days but not without its frustrations. For those who are recovering from PRK eye surgery my biggest recommendation is to have patience. It really is several months of recovery because not every eye will heal the same or as fast as you want. My recovery process has been longer than someone I know who had the surgery around the same time, and eventually it does get better.