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Well, its been a year since I’ve been with GoDaddy. To be honest, I don’t care much for their hosting plans; but I’ll remain with them up until the “On Piracy” project is complete. To celebrate my year with them, here are some statistics:

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General Data:
Successful server requests 1,300,527 Requests
Successful requests for pages 250,099 Requests for pages
Distinct files requested 89,744 Files
Total data transferred 979.67 GBytes

Top Referrers: [Requests]
1. http://www.maelys.bio/ 554,237
2. http://www.binrev.com/ 126,814
3. http://www.[anonymous].org/ 72,070
4. http://maelys.bio/ 40,171
5. http://www.[anonymous].com/ 24,615
6. http://www.piracydocumentary.com/ 23,557

Most Popular Search Queries: [Referrals]
1. rogers newsgroups 417
2. julien mcardle 342
3. eynto 233
4. julien beaver 194
5. humour 188
6. rogers newsgroup 139
7. claymation 57
8. eynto show 55
9. dvd_animation@yahoo.com 40
10. jack thompson 37

Most Popular OS: [Requests]
1. Windows 886,967
2. Macintosh 49,718
3. Linux 45,896
4. BSD 1,428
5. SunOS 393

Most Popular Browser: [Requests]
1. Mozilla 531,582
2. MSIE 409,922
3. Netscape (compatible) 151,100
4. msnbot 78,248
5. Opera 44,352

Yep, I got mentionned in Computer World. Pretty awesome!

As for HOPE: Well, I had a fantastic few days! Originally, I had booked off four days from work (it’s the most I can take off at any one time.) So the plan was for me to take an early flight from Ottawa on Friday, arrive in NYC shortly thereafter, then head off to the conference to catch the panels, have a great time, etc.

Unfortunately, mother nature had other plans. Storms pummelled New York, and my original flight got grounded. I quickly managed to rebook for a new flight, and a few hours later I was on my way to Montreal. This new flight was from Ottawa –> Montreal –> New York City. Well, I got to Montreal just fine, but my Montreal to NY flight got cancelled due to the storms again. I now found myself in somewhat of a pickle: I was stranded somewhere near Montreal (I didn’t know where), the next flight wasn’t until Saturday, and I had no place to stay for the night. Well, I called up Air Canada, got on a waiting list for a fully booked flight at 6:45AM, and walked to the nearest hotel I could find.

5:50AM the next day, I checked out of my hotel room and made my way over to the airport. As it turns out, there were 50 other people on the waiting list, so I wasn’t able to catch that 6:45AM flight. Fortunately, there was another airplane out to New York later that day that wasn’t filled. I took it. To make a long story short: at 3PM on Saturday, after having passed through US customs 3 times, I finally arrived in New York City. The bad news was that now I only had 48 hours to spend in that wonderful city.

But you know what? I had the best 48 hours of my life. I managed to attend a few panels (I had missed the brunt of the ones I had wanted to attend, and many others were cancelled.) I was able to do my talk along with Jason Scott, which went well. Well, relatively well. In the time that I did speak, I managed to blabber the utmost stupidest things. I try not to think about it.

So right up until now, you must think that I’m being sarcastic about my enjoying New York. I am not. There are two things which far outweighed any negatives I encountered. First, were the people. This conference was a virtual “Who’se who” of the slightly-subversive computer world. I met people from the CCC, Richard Stallman, BinRev-ers, the people from No Starch Press, the guy that hacked the CVS digital cameras… all these people that one only reads about. They were there. In person. Insane.

The other thing that made the conference great was New York itself. On Saturday night, I toured around with Cypress, a BinRev member, along with his family. We checked out bits of New York that were somewhat off the beaten path (woot!) Sunday night, I was able to get in touch with a good family friend that moved over there. Both he and I went out for some NY-style cheesecake (delicious.) Fabulous. Then on Monday, during my final hours in NY, I was able to get on a Grayline bus tour and visit around town. I got to see Times Square. I got to be on Broadway street. I got to see a bit of a Late Show segment. I ate a NY hotdog. Absolutely phenomenal.

During my stay, I was at a little youth hostel right near Madison Square Gardens. We were about 7 sleeping in the room I was in. The place left some things to be desired: The staff behaved as if they couldn’t care less, the airconditioner clocked in at 120 decibels, and my roomates enjoyed puking in the toilet alot. But that said, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything in the world.

To top it all off, I turned 21 during the last conference day (Sunday, July 23rd.) I couldn’t of asked for a better birthday present than to be able to experience what I did. This was a fantastic trip. New York is truly a great city. *Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today, I want to be a part of it, New York, New York…*

Make sure to check out the gallery!

Yep, the official site of the documentary has garnered [as of today] over 100,000 unique visits. I’m guessing there’s about ~400 a day now.

Alls I can say is: WOOOOOOOT!

I won’t forget yesterday.

We were about to go out on a cruise, when suddenly we heard screams. The captain ordered me to get a life ring fast. The captain, first mate, and I ran over 50 feet away; to the bottom of the canal locks. A family, that seemed alone, were screaming the name of thier loved one at the water.

A lady had fallen from the bottom lock into the Ottawa River. That’s a drop of what – 20/25 feet? She wasn’t anywhere to be seen. They were draining the water from the locks, which I guess was producing a strong undertow. The captain was screaming to a locksperson to shut off the water. The locksperson was screaming some gibberish back; but wasn’t shutting off the water. We stood there, trying to find any sign of her in the water as more kept rushing in.

Another of the family member jumped into the river, looking for her. He moved around furiously as the others in his family tried to direct him. Nothing. He was going here, there, everywhere but she was nowhere to be found.

Nothing. Nowhere. Time passed. Just nothing.

In what felt like 4 minutes later; a terrible 4 minutes; a body emerged. Face down in the water, motionless. It was her. The family member went for her. There were 4 of us there from our company. The river captain (my captain), the first mate (the person who I assist in such events), a canal captain that was down there to oversee the ticket selling operations, and myself. The canal captain jumped in. By that time, an offduty paramedic came by; and directed the persons to make sure her head was floating above water as they tried to swim back with her body.

They pulled her up from the river. “On the grass!” he screamed. She wasn’t breathing. She didn’t have a pulse. She had been under for 4 minutes. The paramedic asked if anyone knew CPR. The captain (river captain) did, and began to do chest pumps as the paramedic gave mouth to mouth. They were doing it. They kept doing it. But the lady… nothing. Her child was nearby, crying for his mother as she lay there without a pulse. I won’t ever forget that child. More pumps, more mouth to mouth… Nothing… This went on for what seemed like forever, and I thought that that child would loose his mother.

Pumps Pumps. Nothing. Pumps Pumps. Nothing.

Finally, something. She shook; the paramedic tried to get a conscious response out of her… if she did respond, I didn’t see it. They got her on her side. Thank god for that off-duty firefighter/paramedic. If it wasn’t for him… and for the captain… and for the canal captain… I don’t know if she would of made it.

But its not over. Once the situation was under control, we left. We were late. Finally, minutes later, the first ambulance arrived. The paramedic later came back to us. She was in critical condition at the hospital. Seven minutes is a long time without oxygen to the brain.

I pray that that child will have his mother back. I won’t ever forget that child, or that lifeless body floating up from the depths of the Ottawa River.