Sean Gursky: Pioneer on the Internet

My County Closing

By Sean | April 2, 2009

One series has ended and now it’s time to witness the closing of another, however this one has been much more influential in my life. For the last fifteen years my Thursday nights have been booked. Everyone that had ever crossed my path growing up knew that on Thursday night I would be unavailable. After tonight, for the first time since 1994, my television schedule on Thursday will be without ER.

I cannot say that the last fifteen years have all been good. I have seen the series start out in its infant stages, grow into a show that had most weekly viewers than the most recent airing of the Oscars, say farewell to beloved cast members, then go into a dark spiral where the show almost became a parody of itself and now to slowly turn itself back around to have a justifiable end.

ER John Carter - Noah Wyle Sadly, because of my age when I started watching, I remember more of the bad than the good but I remember how it felt to be watching ER in its prime. Because of this I often find myself remembering how much I enjoyed characters like Greene, Carter, Gallant and Barnett and finding myself becoming detached from, and a little angered at, current characters like Neela, Gates, Brenner and Banfield.

Looking over the top rated episodes on TV.com I am surprised to see how many are from the current season. Perhaps people have forgotten how good the early years were or just haven’t seen them recently enough to vote on them? ER did start before the Internet became accessible to the public so episodes from back then did not have the luxury of instant critiquing from fans.

While writing this it occurred to me that my television addiction could all be traced back to ER when Mom and I would look forward to Thursday’s for the newest episode. My compulsion to see a new television episode when it airs and stop what I was doing for it was because of this series. It is a little sad to see the cause of my dependence on TV go into retirement.

However, it has been a fun, sometimes a little long and demanding, trip but ER will be missed from my Thursday nights.

Thanks for the memories.

My Fool in March

By Sean | April 1, 2009

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I had a great idea for April Fools. It would have topped all previous ideas before it, however I think I was a little too early in my execution.

Here was my plan: delete all of my web files, wipe out multiple databases, put my seagurs domain into 1and1 purgatory and start over with no backups and months of Project 365 photos lost in the process. It would have been a real hoot, and you all would have totally looked like fools.

A good plan always needs precise execution. I guess I will go back to the drawing board then. Next year though…look out, the powers of that “Delete” button will know no limits.

My Hangup on Hardcovers

By Sean | March 31, 2009

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The Watchmen - Time Travelers Wife In the last week I have read The Watchmen and The Time Traveler’s Wife. While reading these books it dawned on me why don’t I think about reading digital books? It makes sense, everything else around me has converted from a physical copy of something to its digital cousin, so books would be a logical change.

Assuming a device like the Kindle 2 was available in Canada and had all of the books I would be interested in reading I still wouldn’t take it. For as digital as I am there is something very satisfying about reading a book. A well read book shows its age while reading a brand new book is engaging because everything about the book (the cover, font, page thickness) is fresh and it is immensely satisfying seeing the bookmark progress along the spine.

It would be the physical qualities of a book I would miss. There is a certain pride with seeing all seven Harry Potter novels lined up on the bookshelf that could not be had if all seven books were digital in your hand. This feels like a weird argument for me to make, seeing as album art and liner notes of a CD are something I don’t miss but others claim that make the CD a little more personal.

What makes flipping through lyrics of a new album different than skimming the pages of a new book?

My Closing Shift

By Sean | March 28, 2009

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My week of night shifts comes to a close this evening…or rather early Sunday morning.

It has been anything but easy, there have been nights where I got between two and four hours of sleep. The two nights I was able to get six hours of sleep felt amazing. The downside to all of this is that I have been spending a lot of time by myself. Such quiet time has lead me to penguin hunt around the office the last time I worked nights so it does take its tole.

However this stretch has had less interaction with people and I kind of forget that there are others that work here. It can happen quite easily when you are alone for so long…you begin to imagine things.

I have to be honest, between 2AM and 4AM is my most productive time. I don’t take care of business, I own business. I speak with clients, plan out a new module for CORE, do some coding and put in an honest days effort.

The action isn’t limited to there, I even get work done at my desk. In between providing support for the curling game I look over some stats, have a little chat with myself and do some recreational reading.

Lunch gets a little tight on space but we all make room. Sometimes we will share items with each other, others will just sit in silence with their head in their hands but we all get on.

The frightening thing is that when I return home I am still in work mode, and even kicking back to relax has more of the same!

As obvious as it may be, I am looking forward to returning to a normal work schedule and interacting with real people at the office.

My Night Watch List

By Sean | March 26, 2009

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For the last few days I have been working night shifts to cover a CurlTV broadcast from Korea. This is the second event I have switched my schedule around for, not that it makes it any easier. However, night shifts have some good to them, see what gets me through the long days…

Benefits:

You know that at any given moment all bathrooms are unoccupied
The volume of music does not affect anyone but you
You can have breakfast twice a day
You can consume meals in opposite order, ending your day on the most important meal
Dress code is not enforced, when people see you they expect you to be a little frayed
You can have beer when you wake up (as it is the afternoon) and a beer after work without it sounding too bad
The lineups at Tim Hortons are minimal
You can drive home into the sunset, which is more poetic than riding with the sunrise

Cons:

You still have to drive with a rush hour, even if the morning one is the equivalent of a busy Saturday
You cannot refer to Thursday evening the same way anymore as that is your Friday morning
Dates and times get confusing, but people won’t question your logic (ie: see previous point)
Sleep is your enemy and friend all in one tired state
You check your email less and easily drop out of touch with what is happening when you are sleeping

With that said night shifts do not work for me. I have always had problems sleeping in, and when the only sleep I get through the day is by sleeping in I routinely get three to four hours of sleep a night; a far cry from the eight hours I was getting a night last week.

My Hot Dog Redemption

By Sean | March 24, 2009

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What may have troubled me the most since losing my data to 1and1 last week is the status of my Tube Steak Challenge. The posts documenting my adventure may eventually return but I had such a wonderful source image to keep track of my progress that after a few minutes of searching on Google Images, Flickr and iStockPhoto I have been unable to find it.

Going through the depths of Google Images I did find a few seagurs references to my Tube Steak Challenge, and one of them says I was at 38. I don’t know what date that was or how many I have had since then, so until I get that sorted out I shall keep track of the number of dogs since the purge: x + 3

Where x is the number of hot dogs I consumed prior to the purge for my Tube Steak Challenge.

My Hull Breach

By Sean | March 23, 2009

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I have had several days, two complete viewings and a few hours of discussions among others but the hole left by Galactica is still pretty painful.

I still find myself thinking about the finale, the story, the music used and what it all means an awful lot. Fortunately I am not the only one still reeling from the finale. You could say that following the finale I didn’t sleep for over twenty four hours. It is an unrelated point but it’s still valid.

Battlestar Galactica - The Office - Idiot For something I love so much I don’t think I could ever give it’s final chapter a proper review, but my initial feeling was that I loved it. Going into the finale I wanted answers on Starbuck, the meaning of the Opera House and insight into the Head characters. I did not bat a perfect thousand but what I got was good. To my surprise there were some other character redemptions along the way that further added to my enjoyment.

It was a solid send off that gave the fans beautiful visual displays as the remaining CGI budget was spent, some ambiguity left for debate, a few issues that could spur arguments among fans and some thoroughly touching moments between seasoned characters.

I am not sure what my perfect finale would have been. I have come to expect the most grim and dire from this show and I anticipated a lot of death. However to do that would have been very dark, even for a show that killed off almost all of the human race at the very beginning.

I am currently in the process of watching the series again for a third time and what happened in the finale has directly impacted several of the episodes I have seen, even as far back as season two. I may have issues about how certain topics were dealt with but if a show can change the light I view past episodes, characters or decisions in then it successfully did its job.

I hope to never forget the moment the end credits rolled for the final time on the show. I put my head in my hands and asked Gord to give me a minute. Like watching a really good live performance you close your eyes to remember everything and hold onto that feeling of what it was like when you watched Battlestar Galactica on Friday evenings.

There must be some kind of way out of here…

My Galactica Dedication

By Sean | March 20, 2009

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For the last few weeks I have working on various stages of this post. Some versions had the beginnings of what made this show appealing to me. Other revisions had a simple graphic and a thank you. Each time I wrote something I felt that it wasn’t doing proper justice to the show or what I was thinking and for a show like this I think it would be difficult to properly convey everything you feel about it.

With that said, tonight is the series finale of Battlestar Galactica. Since the air dates of this season were announced over six months ago I have had March 20th noted on the calendar. It seemed like such a long time to wait, I felt that I could prepare myself for its end, but once 2009 began and the final episodes of the season started to air it flew by.

For the last sixteen months I have devoted a lot of my time and energy into this show, probably more than I have with any other show in that time. It is a bittersweet thing to see a show you love go off the air, one that I haven’t felt before. How did fans of Six Feet Under, The Sopranos or The Wire react when their show drew to a close? What will it be like watching the final minutes of the show air before wrapping up the television season for good?

I haven’t thought about what life after Battlestar Galactica would be like, it’s a topic I don’t want to dwell on. Instead I will focus on the now and realize that in five hours it will all be over.

To Galactica, the best ship in the fleet. You will be missed but never forgotten.

So say we all.